April is National Minority Health Month and this year ORWH is highlighting the important roles individuals and organizations play in helping to reduce health disparities and improve the health of racial and ethnic minorities. The recently expanded Pearls of Wisdom series features Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., Director for the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). In this Pearls video, Dr. Pérez-Stable describes attributes of a good mentor.
Dr. Pérez-Stable practiced general internal medicine for 37 years at the University of California, San Francisco. During his time there, he was a professor of medicine and chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine for 17 years. Dr. Pérez-Stable joined NIH in September 2015. His research interests include improving the health of racial and ethnic minorities and underserved populations, advancing patient-centered care, improving cross-cultural communication skills among clinicians, and promoting diversity in the biomedical research workforce. For more than 30 years, Dr. Pérez-Stable has led research on Latino smoking cessation and tobacco control policy in the United States and Latin America, addressing clinical and prevention issues in cancer screening, and mentoring more than 70 minority investigators. He has published more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2001.
The Pearls of Wisdom online series of short videos aims to inspire, motivate, and inform individuals at all stages of their biomedical careers, with a particular focus on women in STEMM fields. Produced and funded by the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH), it features prominent scientists and physicians at NIH and beyond – many from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups–sharing words of wisdom, perspectives, and advice to current and future women scientists.
The Pearls of Wisdom series is located on the redesigned NIH “Women in Science” website, which describes the history of the NIH Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers and provides information on the working group’s subcommittees, supported programs, grants, career development resources, NIH diversity resources, and career flexibility initiatives.