Deborah Rose, MD
Duke University School of Medicine
3rd Year Resident
Q. Please tell me about your career path and research:
A. I like to think about my career path, my interest in research dating back to shortly before I even started medical school. I was working at the NIH at that time, doing a year of research through the National Institute of Mental Health, and that is what got me really excited about neurology. In the first place, I was working with Reses monkeys, and we were actually doing procedures to take a closer look at the neuroanatomy and specifically how we could better control neuronal activity of specific brain areas. That got me excited about neurology throughout medical school and it was my clinical rotations that helped me decide to even pursue neurology. At the end of medical school, I started working for an organization that is dedicated to serving older adults who have chronic illnesses, including Alzheimer's Disease, and that is what got me excited specifically about Alzheimer's Disease and dementia research and advocacy. It was during COVID, so things were shut down, but the service that this organization provided was still considered essential. I was able to work quite a bit during that time, and really help the clients. We’d help the clients and their family members with activities of daily living, cooking, cleaning, etc. It is a really intimate exposure into the unique challenges that they experience. So that got me excited about dementia research and in my first year of residency was when I started working with one of my incredible mentors, Dr. Andy Liu, who is a pathoneurologist at Duke. He is looking into among many things, racial disparities in Alzheimer's disease, so I joined him on his projects.
One of the things we're doing now is looking at implementing a new cognitive screening test in our diverse population of the memory disorders clinic at Duke. I'm hoping to actually look into as I move on into fellowship and beyond to look into the upstream factors of risk of Alzheimer's Disease -- really focusing on what it is earlier in life that played a big role in the individual experiencing this cognitive decline. Specifically, I'm very interested in looking at the associations between early life, adversity, and subsequent cognitive decline. So childhood trauma and adverse childhood experiences, and how that plays a role in many of the racial disparities that we're seeing within ADRD research.
Q. Is there anything that you would like to say in this interview, as it relates to your advocacy work, because that's something that's very unique with a lot of academic neurologists and neuroscientists?
A. I'm grateful to be working with the Alzheimer's Association as a Community Education Volunteer. I started doing that early on in my first year residency and I love it. It is a volunteer position where we basically go to many different areas throughout North Carolina, and we talk to different communities, about the disease, about the differences between Alzheimer's and dementia, how they can work on prevention, when the best time is to go get evaluated by their physician or another health care provider. So it is really about raising awareness, and also a big part is providing support for caregivers who are taking care of loved ones who suffer from dementia.
Q. What elements of diversity, equity, and inclusion are most important to you and your career?
A. I love this question. I believe that DEI comes into play in every aspect of my career, and I like to think about it in two different ways. One in terms of my training, I believe that throughout my educational career, my medical training, that working with diverse groups of people, and having coworkers of diverse backgrounds really enriches the learning experience. Because you have people who have naturally, inherently different perspectives based on the way that they were raised in their cultural upbringings. But importantly, the patients we take care of who come from diverse backgrounds. That also provides a very enriching learning experience. So diversity all around is just phenomenal, especially for medical training. I also like to think as a medical trainee about Dr. Martin Luther King's words about how, of all the forms of inequality, he said that injustice in health is the most shocking and the most inhuman, because it often results in physical death. I really do think about this quote a lot because it drives forward my framework and really my impetus for pursuing a medical career in the first place. I really do believe that important qualities and simple qualities like compassion, empathy, cultural humility, are at the cornerstone of medical care and DEI initiatives within the healthcare space. I do believe that they set the stage for the type of care that a patient will receive, especially towards those who have been historically disenfranchised, and unfortunately relegated to having worse outcomes secondary to, in many cases, a lower socioeconomic status, etc. And importantly, if we're talking about clinical research, I'll just say that DEI initiatives are important within that space, especially because we really need to prioritize recruiting those from diverse ancestral backgrounds, especially those of racial and ethnic minoritized communities, because it really drives forward research initiatives to better understand disease, the risk factors for disease which may include economic status accumulated stress throughout the life course, the types of stress that different groups are exposed to, medical background, etc. So all of this is extremely important primarily, so that ultimately, we can try to devise and implement interventions to address these factors that are closely tied to a specific disease for certain groups.
Q. What's the best career advice you've received, thus far?
A. I’ve received a lot of great advice, but I'd probably say the best is the idea of cutting out shadow tasks. This is a term coined by Dr. Kemi Doll, who is an OBGYN physician at the University of Washington, and she has her own podcast called Your Unapologetic Career, and she provides a lot of support for women of color in academic medicine and public health. Her podcast talks about cutting out the shadow tasks, which are extra things that you offer to do, which is good, you know, offers to help other colleagues, and really trying to help drive forward their research and their work, but doing too much of that can be harmful to the own work that you're trying to carry forward. And that's one thing that I am trying to learn now as a trainee, because I get excited about so many things, and it's good to have that fresh, excitement about different areas of work that can broaden your horizons and my current medical training. But it's important now to really think about focusing on that one thing that you want to achieve in your profession and trying not to be too distracted by a lot of these shadow tasks that come up and that can ultimately, unfortunately hinder you from really moving forward with the work you're trying to do. And I think that's also echoed in the book, The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results. It kind of focuses on the same message which is to really focus on one thing… in your career… in the profession… in your life… that you really want to become an expert in and it gives really good practical tips about how to minimize those distractions that can drag you all over the place instead of staying on the straight and narrow path.
Q. What does Black History Month mean to you?
A. I've always thought of it as a time for us to celebrate the achievements of African Americans, well known African Americans in our in our history, just to really celebrate how far we've come as a society in terms of racial justice and equity. But of course, also to acknowledge that there's still a long way for us to go. So, in a way, I like to think about it as us stopping, acknowledging that we've done quite a bit to move forward in bringing together diverse groups of individuals to focus on social justice and to dispel racism and other things that have and are setting us back, but at the same time acknowledge that those things are still unfortunately pervasive in in certain parts of our society. Black History Month is a time to celebrate, and it's a time to think about what we can do, even more to move forward and make sure that we're continuing to move the needle.
Q. Who is another inspirational black historical figure that inspires you? And why?
A. Michelle Obama. Every time I get asked this question, it is almost automatic for me to say her because she has been so inspirational for me since the time that she and President Obama stepped foot into the White House. I truly admire her commitment to public service. She also is a fighter for so many other important causes, like reducing childhood obesity, addressing food deserts. She also is a big proponent of the simple idea of loving and accepting others for who they are - but it's something that is not as practiced. I think that she has set a wonderful example for other women of color who are maybe coming up the pipeline behind her in terms of their profession in their career, and seeing her as an inspiration is such a wonderful way to help a lot of us move forward within our own paths. She herself came from humble beginnings and then grew to have a global impact. She's brilliant. She is passionate. She is undoubtedly one of the most inspirational African American women leaders of our time, in my opinion.
Q. What can professional organizations like the ANA do to support the advancement of black physician researchers and scientists?
A. The ANA is already doing a fantastic job. I believe it was a couple of years ago that a DEI statement went out, and since then there has been have been the rise of a couple of programs, such as the Junior Award Members program to support underrepresented individuals like myself, who are committed to neuroscience research and I just I love that ANA Is so committed to this. I think it's extremely important. I think one part, if it's not already in existence, that would be beneficial to other unrepresented individuals and research is perhaps the creation of, not support groups, but perhaps sort of mentorship pairings with other individuals who are further along in their career, and who have much more experience with the clinician researcher path, especially in terms of grant writing, and who have experience with mentorship, who had gone through the path that we're hoping to achieve. So that would be one suggestion that potential mentees can sign up for. But I think that the ANA is already doing a fantastic job in other ways to really move forward with supporting African American clinician researchers.
Closing: Any other comments you’d like to make?
I just want to thank you and the ANA for this opportunity to even be interviewed. I think it is such an honor, and I’m very grateful for this this recognition, and I hope that most importantly, I hope that some of these words will be an inspiration to other trainees, or those who are even younger, and coming up the pipeline and have an interest in also becoming a physician scientist.