安德里亚尤因里德' 80:医生，教育家，院长和倡导者

Last Friday, 作为威尼斯彩票游戏虚拟聚会的职业日主题演讲嘉宾, Andrea walked rapt students, alumnae, 通过她从一个八岁的充满希望的医生到马萨诸塞州总医院的胃肠病学家的神奇旅程，, then the VA Medical Center in Washington, DC, 最后回到她现在的工作岗位，担任多元化和教师发展主任, MGH Gastroenterology at Mass General and Associate Dean for Student and Multicultural Affairs; Director of the Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs at Harvard Medical School.

After Foxcroft, which “was the first place I've been, other than my family, where it was really good to be smart,安德里亚在布朗大学学习心理学. While there, 她加入并领导了黑人医学预科协会, 她注意到他们在社区的工作以及她从医学界代表性不足的个人那里听到的鼓舞人心的故事是她生活的重要组成部分.

她以优异的成绩获得了布朗大学的学位, Andrea enrolled at Harvard Medical School, another pivotal point in her life, but one that she almost didn’t take advantage of.

“我差点没去，因为我不喜欢波士顿，”她解释说. “I didn't like what Boston represented. You have to remember this was in 1984; Harvard Medical School hadn't been diversified for very long. Medicine was still largely male, 对于有色人种来说，波士顿是一个非常困难的城市，他们在20世纪70年代末经历了一段混乱的时期，因为校车和学校系统的歧视, and I never wanted to be in Boston, 但我决定来这里是因为哈佛医学院.” 

Following Harvard, 安德里亚在麻省总医院接受住院医师和胃肠训练, 作为少数女性之一，有色人种女性更少, “我们开始推动公平，真正对抗空白. 没有少数族裔教师在教我们, there were very few other minority residents, 我们可以看到对少数患者有不同的治疗方法.” 

As she was finishing her training, she was asked to stay on faculty, 这巩固了她对医学教育和认证的兴趣. “所以我在推动改变的同时，也在改变自己，”她解释说. “我是第一个接受内科和胃肠道培训(或任何培训)的黑人，并留在教职. So when I stayed on faculty, talk about being alone, 很少有人长得像我，或者和我有同样的观点. But slowly, 当我们开始激励领导层讨论多元化的方法时, things began to change.”  

在此期间，安德里亚获得了哈佛大学公共卫生硕士学位.H. 担任麻省总医院多元文化事务办公室副主任, 最终从那里转移到华盛顿的退伍军人医疗中心, DC, 并最终回到波士顿，在哈佛大学和麻省总医院担任双重职务. 

As her presentation wound down, Andrea shared these parting thoughts, “Finally, I want to end by saying that, you know, 从少数几个愿意突破哈佛医学院和麻省总医院的障碍的人之一，这是一段有趣的旅程, 但现在我也有能力去影响那些保持这些数字的系统, 非常低，从更广泛的角度去思考它们，而不是思考我自己.” 

最后，她引用了詹姆斯·鲍德温(James Baldwin)的话, one of her favorite authors, “Not everything that's faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it's faced.“安德里亚不是一个回避改变系统的艰难而重要的工作的人，这不仅仅是为了她自己, but for those who would come after. 她一直并将继续在医学和医学培训中使用她的声音, 我们很感激她与我们分享了她鼓舞人心的故事.

安德里亚的演讲拉开了整个下午的序幕，在八个不同的分组讨论中，校友们慷慨地抽出时间分享了他们职业道路上的个人故事. These women, representing classes ranging from 1980 to 2016, hail from a broad variety of fields, 包括Yelp的通讯和公共关系高级经理, an electrical engineer for Chevron, the Senior VP of Design at Hollister, a certified nurse-midwife, and more. Students attended two sessions and, 毫无疑问，他对离开威尼斯彩票游戏后的生活有了很多了解. 
 
非常感谢抽出时间的杰出女性以及机构进步办公室, especially Katherine Murphy, for organizing the event.