New president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital makes medical staff diversity a top priority

Article

New president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital makes medical staff diversity a top priority

From his first job as a doctor more than three decades ago to his current role in the upper echelons of academic medicine, Dr. Robert S. D. Higgins has grown accustomed to being the first Black person to hold a position.

Higgins, an accomplished heart and lung transplant surgeon, is now the first Black person to serve as president of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He is charged with leading the prestigious hospital through a complex integration with Massachusetts General Hospital and the other institutions that make up the Mass General Brigham system.

His history of career firsts is critical to how he’s approaching the job.

The son of one of the few Black doctors to build a career in the segregated South, Higgins is focused on diversifying the Brigham’s workforce and developing a new generation of doctors that includes more women and people of color — people who historically have faced barriers to careers in medicine.

The views and opinions expressed in the article are solely those of their authors, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of UDiversity.com.