For the first time in the history of Johns Hopkins Hospital, the flagship Halsted Service in Trauma & Acute Care Surgery is led by an all-Black team of senior residents and fellows.
The Team:
- Dr. Valentine S. Alia – 2nd year resident
- Dr. Ivy Mannoh – 3rd year resident
- Dr. Ifeoluwa “Ife” Shoyombo – 3rd year resident, M.P.H., M.S.
- Dr. Lawrence Brown – 7th year resident, Ph.D., M.P.H.
- Dr. Zachary Obinna Enumah – 9th year critical care fellow, Ph.D., M.A.
Between the 5 of them: 5 MDs, 2 PhDs, 6 Master’s degrees — “but more importantly, a shared commitment to serving the people of Baltimore”.
Black individuals make up 13.4% of the U.S. population, yet only 5.6% of surgeons in training are Black. Nationwide, only 6% of general surgeons are Black. Representation in medicine isn’t symbolic — it’s operational leadership. Studies show it can “help mitigate racial health disparities”.
Dr. Brown, the first physician in his family, said: “Equity has to remain at the forefront of how we deliver patient care, how we do research, how we scale programs up in our healthcare system”.
As Dr. Alia and Dr. Brown posted: “We are Black history. We are our ancestors’ wildest dreams. And we’re just getting started”.
This milestone honours the legacy of pioneers like Vivien Thomas at Johns Hopkins in the 1940s, and opens doors for the next generation. It’s about the child seeing this and thinking “Maybe I’m not crazy for dreaming”. It’s about the patient who sees a surgeon who looks like them and feels “a different kind of safety”.
These 5 surgeons carry 13 advanced degrees together. What “degree” of excellence, sacrifice, or service are you being called to pursue in your own field?
Whose dream are you living out, and whose dream are you making possible for the next generation?
What pipelines can we build in our own industries to increase access and representation?
Where have you seen the power of representation change an outcome?
