Television stars, like Abbott Elementary's Sheryl Lee Ralph, politicians, including Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, doctors and clergy are among area college commencement speakers this year.
Marie A Bernard was born in New York City and moved to Oklahoma City, USA, as a young
child when her physician parents established a private practice there. “They were
told that there were a lot of opportunities for Black doctors in Oklahoma”, she says.
“It was segregated at that time, segregation that persisted in southern parts of the
US for many years…I grew up in a segregated system until doors opened as I entered
high school.” Following in her parents’ footsteps, Bernard studied medicine at the
University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1976, before training in internal medicine
and becoming a faculty member in the general internal medicine section at Temple University
Hospital and School of Medicine in Philadelphia, PA, where she also served as Chief
Resident.
Earlier this year, the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) acknowledged the impact of structural racism on biomedical science and committed to doing more to dismantle it. Now, in a commentary appearing June 10 in the journal Cell, NIH Director Francis Collins and colleagues describe the NIH s UNITE initiative and how it differs from the agency s previous diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.