90年代，14岁的米歇尔·阿尔伯特的生活节奏飞速发展. 一年半之内, 她和家人从乔治城移民过来, 圭亚那, 到布鲁克林, 纽约, 高三时考进高中, attended college-level courses through a program that primed students from underrepresented groups for careers in medicine, 参加了sat和act考试, 提交了本科申请, 开始了她在欧洲杯买球app官网大学的大一生活.

“很多，而且速度很快，”她回忆道.

Albert graduated with a degree in chemistry at age 20 and hasn’t slowed down since. 在获得医学博士学位后, 她完成了心脏病学的培训, including serving clinical and reSearch fellowships at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School. 在那里, 她遇到了她的第一位导师之一, 著名心血管流行病学家保罗·瑞克, who helped set the foundation for her career exploring the biology of adversity—or how stressors like racism and poverty influence disease processes.

现在是沃尔特A. Haas-Lucie Stern Endowed Chair in Cardiology and associate dean of admissions at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine, Albert has achieved widespread recognition for her work addressing health disparities. She is the immediate past president of the American Heart Association (AHA), where she was the first person to lead while simultaneously serving presidencies with the Association of University Cardiologists (AUC) and the Association of Black Cardiologists. 在她任职之前，从未有过有色人种女性掌舵美国心脏协会或美国妇女协会.

在2023年夏季结束她的AHA任期后不久, Albert sat down with 欧洲杯买球怎么投注 to discuss her professional path and priorities.

是什么把你吸引到医学上来的?
This goes back to the working-class environment in which I grew up in 圭亚那, where I had a front-row seat watching how disadvantages like poverty influence health outcomes. I was raised by my grandparents while my parents were away studying to help support us, and the sudden death of my grandfather from cardiac arrest in a place without adequate healthcare resources specifically spurred my interest in cardiology. This interest went beyond wanting to be a doctor and doing clinical practice—my upbringing made me want to make a difference in the way medicine is taught and the way reSearch gets done to incorporate economic adversity and its impact on health.

When did you begin connecting socioeconomic stress to health on a molecular level?
最初, I struggled to figure out how to parlay my passions for both science and social issues into an academic career. 在波士顿的时候, I was doing population science reSearch on biomarkers of inflammation with my mentor [Ridker], studying how certain chemical molecules predicted cardiovascular risk. 然后我开始问这样的问题, “OK, 我们知道这个分子可以预测风险, 但是它是如何被社会经济地位决定的呢? 它是如何按种族和民族划分的?” 在那里 are huge disparities in health outcomes based on social context, and I knew looking at adversity’s relationship to biology would help us understand the mechanisms responsible for them.

Beyond uncovering those mechanisms, what can be done to reduce disparities?
答案很复杂. 第一个, we need to reform medical education so it prioritizes the social determinants of health just as much as it prioritizes the basic sciences. And it’s not just about teaching; it’s about providing more financial support for reSearch connecting social issues to health.

We also need to do a better job addressing social complexities in the clinic. 比方说，一个病人因心力衰竭而入院. Doctors will collect that person’s history, do a physical exam, and develop a diagnostic plan. But rarely do they ask, “Is this patient able to obtain and take particular medications? What stressors might prevent them from doing what they need to take care of themselves and get well?”

医生需要倡导健康公平, whether it’s through scientific work or teaching or policy or supporting diverse persons directly.

你工作中最困难的部分是什么?
I’ve often felt isolated among my peers because cardiologists traditionally have not been interested in the work I do. They are generally more interested in the interventional and clinical aspects of the field. 我研究的社会话题是难以接受和讨论的, plus they’re not topics that get funded easily or that will put you under glamorous bright lights. Limited dedicated funding programs for people interested in doing reSearch around social factors and health exist. The discipline hasn’t been resourced, so people instead gravitate toward work that is incentivized.

你是一位备受尊敬的导师. 为什么指导年轻医生对你很重要?
My mentees actually span the whole spectrum, from pre-medical school to faculty members. 师徒关系不只是自上而下的事，也是自下而上的事, 这是一个侧面的东西, 这从来都不是交易. Some of my mentees are also mentors to me—because we all need help sometimes. 但是当涉及到指导年轻人的时候, 特别是, I see myself as someone who can improve representation in medicine and help grow a more diverse medical workforce, which is important because increasing diversity in healthcare improves the quality of care for those who are socioeconomically disadvantaged as well as Black and brown patients.

你做什么来放松?
当我unwind的时候，我仍然在unwind. 我喜欢娱乐和装饰, 我花了很多时间在Pinterest上寻找设计灵感. I’m currently planning an at-home spa party and high afternoon tea for some friends. Everyone who comes to something I host knows they’re going to go home with great party favors.

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