Roy Hamilton. Image: Steve Gilbert
“One's identity and path might be unique, but the challenges one faces aren't. I draw tremendous strength from those with whom I've been able to be mentored by or have worked with in a variety of capacities….. Strong mentors are critical for developing your best career and your best self. Learn from them. And then, become one.”
That was the message from neurologist and neuroscientist Roy Hamilton MD '01 the keynote speaker at the 23rd annual Robert H. Ebert Lecture delivered on April 11 to newly accepted Harvard Medical School students attending Revisit Week programs at the School. The talks and programs are designed to give students an immersive second look at HMS before they make their final decisions.
Adapting to change and then creating environments that will allow others to thrive was the thematic framework of Hamilton’s talk, titled “Stimulating Brains and Opening Minds: The multifaceted career of a neurologist, neuroscientist, and diversity advocate.”
Employing the multiple definitions of the word plasticity, Hamilton described how having a mentor and advocate, and then becoming one himself, shaped the course of his life and career.
Formative years
As a gifted child of multiracial, working-class parents and having been raised as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Long Beach, California, Hamilton said he was aware of the disparities of opportunity and his sense of otherness at an early age.
But as a student at Harvard University and then HMS, Hamilton said he turned wealth and privilege gaps into opportunities “to connect with people across boundaries in a way I hadn’t experienced before.”
Hamilton said he found some of his earliest champions at HMS in Alvin Poussaint, faculty associate dean for student affairs; Alvaro Pascual-Leone, HMS professor of neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess; and Rosa Soler, director of student affairs. “Individuals who weren't bound to me by familial relationships, but who were nonetheless willing to invest their time, their effort, their energy into me, my personal development and my career.”
Mentoring in action
Now running his own lab at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Hamilton said he believes in paying it forward and acting as a strong mentor to others “who come from backgrounds, and have had experiences, that might not necessarily have afforded them advantages, in terms of launching a career in academic medicine.”
“My goal now is to create the kinds of environmental conditions that allow people from all different backgrounds to thrive. To create the kinds of careers that are meaningful to them… to patients and to the medical profession,” Hamilton said.
Hamilton leads by example. He developed the neurobiology curriculum for the four-year Penn Educational Pipeline Program in the Perelman School of Medicine; oversees a leadership team of students from various cultural affinity groups that meets to discuss how the different groups can work together; and advocates for greater representation of those underrepresented in medicine in academic medicine and, in particular, the field of neurology.
Ebert remembered
Tamina Kienka, Holmes Society student, and Sherri-Ann Burnett-Bowie, faculty assistant dean for student affairs and assistant director of the Office of Recruitment and Multicultural Affairs, welcomed the prospective students in the TMEC Carl W. Walter Amphitheater.
Burnett-Bowie reflected on the legacy of the lecture’s namesake and long-term HMS dean, Robert Ebert, who she called “a seminal figure… a champion of a number of programs that define the very character of our school today.”
Ebert created the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology program and founded the Harvard Community Health Plan–now Harvard-Pilgrim Health Care–the nation’s first academic health maintenance organization that revolutionized the way medical care was financed and delivered in Boston and beyond.
“In 1969, Dr. Ebert initiated the recruitment of unrepresented minority students, resulting in a 10 percent increase in URM enrollment during his 10-year deanship,” said Burnett-Bowie. “He also opened the doors to female students, who now make up 50 percent of our student body.”
Hamilton is an associate professor in the departments of Neurology and Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also directs the Laboratory for Cognition and Neural Stimulation. In addition, Hamilton has been a prominent and outspoken advocate for diversity in academic medicine and neurology. He is an assistant dean for diversity and inclusion at the Perelman School of Medicine and the vice chair for diversity and inclusion in Department of Neurology at the University of Pennsylvania.
