I was recently awarded a grant from ASA, via the Committee on Professional Diversity, to begin cataloguing the history of pioneering African-American male physician anesthesiologists. My mentor for this project is Dr. Vilma Joseph, the first African- American female to become president of the New York State Society of Anesthesiologists. She recently spearheaded a project profiling the diversity of African-American female pioneering physician anesthesiologists.
My goal as one of the grant recipients of the ASA mentoring award is to continue celebrating and highlighting the diversity of our specialty. I will utilize both the ASA Wood Library and the Library of Congress archives to research the history. The majority of my research will stem from interviews with current pioneering male physicians of color in the field of anesthesiology. The aim is to highlight the challenges they faced, or continue to face, and gain insight they may have about the future of...