Joan Reede ISMMS ’80, MD, MPH, MS, MBA
“I think my fellows call me fair, my fellows call me tough… and a lot of them call me mom.” So says Joan Reede ISMMS ’80, MD, MPH, MS, MBA. Dean for Diversity and Community Partnership and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS), Dr. Reede is the first African-American woman to be a dean at the school.
Her fellows are far from the only ones to applaud Dr. Reede‘s warmth and commitment. In March 2015, she was honored with one of Mount Sinai’s highest honors: the Jacobi Medallion, given to those who exemplify Mount Sinai’s commitment to compassionate care and the advancement of medicine.
Dr. Reede was recognized for the development and management of a comprehensive program that provides leadership, guidance, and support to promote diversity and inclusion at HMS.
At Harvard, Dr. Reede has founded more than 20 programs that target individuals from groups underrepresented in medicine. She is the director of the Minority Faculty Development Program, faculty director of Community Outreach Programs, and founder and president of the Biomedical Science Careers Program.
Anyone would take pride in such a résumé, but Dr. Reede is the first to point out that she didn’t get there alone.
“I’m here because of other people who opened the door—the people who helped me to get into Brown, the faculty at Mount Sinai, particularly Horace Hodes, and many others,” she says, referring to the legendary researcher, pediatrician, and teacher. “Horace Hodes was the embodiment of the great scientist and the great clinician, and at the same time he could have a conversation with me about poverty and what we now call the social determinacy of health, and how important that was.”
Why Inclusion Matters
Inclusion is not just “a nice idea,” says Dr. Reede. Instead, it is both necessary and beneficial in a multicultural society.
“Different students ask different questions,” she says, adding that science moves forward when people are challenged in their beliefs.
“Diverse individuals in organizations help those organizations better meet the needs of a diverse society.”
Health care in this country is changing fast, and Dr. Reede, for one, likes that idea. “It’s exciting when the landscape is shifting and people aren’t sure where we’re headed. That’s the space I love. Not just trying to undo the past, but figuring out what the future is going to be.”
One of those changes will be the way medicine is taught. “We need to train students who are able to work with patients who are very, very diverse in their socioeconomic backgrounds, their immigration status, their cultures.“ Health care venues will change, too, according to Dr. Reede. Health care practitioners will have to go into the community, where patients live or work. Care will necessarily be delivered in tertiary care centers.
Seeing Inequity
Dr. Reede saw the effects of inequity at an early age. “I knew that when I visited my grandmother, the white side of the street up to the railroad track was paved and the other side wasn’t,” she recalls. She saw people in the community die because they didn’t have access to care and their illnesses were diagnosed far too late.
From an early age she felt a responsibility to use her abilities to help others. “I found medicine. At first I thought I’d be a nurse, because all the women were nurses in the books I read. And then I said wait a minute–the doctors are in charge, and I want to be in charge, so I’ll be a doctor.”
Dr. Reede’s parents always supported her in her goals. Her mother was deeply involved in social issues, from teaching Sunday school to working with senior citizens. She taught her daughter that you can and should do something with your life.
When asked what she’s most proud of, Dr. Reede doesn’t hesitate: “My daughter and my grandchildren. They are the best thing in the world.”
Mount Sinai’s Legacy
Much of what Dr. Reede knows about community she learned at Mount Sinai. “I did everything from working with Dr. [Lucille Constance] Gunning at Harlem Hospital in Pediatric Rehab, to making home visits with visiting nurses, to an externship at Mount Sinai in Buford, South Carolina, going with social workers on home visits in the Elk Islands.” That early experience continues to inform her work today.
Often Dr. Reede’s fellows come in with a particular interest in specific populations, but they walk away with an understanding that many problems are shared and need to be worked on jointly. Says Dr. Reede, “It’s not about how we divide up the pie, it’s about how a collective rises together.”
Speaking of rising: “What do I think is really cool?” she asks. “That someone whose grandmother was raised by a woman who was a slave is a dean at Harvard.”
— Alison Dalton
Reprinted from the Fall 2015 issue of “Mount Sinai Science & Medicine” magazine.