When Mary Fleming, MD, MPH (CFF ’11) was just out of medical school, she knew that her interests were broader than clinical practice alone. When her chief resident forwarded her a list of fellowship opportunities, the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship in Minority Health Policy at Harvard University caught her eye. On the website, she recognized a friend of a friend, Alden Landry, MD, MPH (CFF ’10), who encouraged her to apply when she reached out. Almost fifteen years later, Fleming is celebrating ten years as President of the Reede Scholars, the alumni organization for graduates of the Commonwealth Fund Fellowship, the Joseph L. Henry Oral Health Fellowship in Minority Health Policy, and the California Endowment Scholars.
At the President’s 10th Anniversary Soirée and Health Equity Awards Ceremony, held on May 9, Fleming and the Reede Scholars presented awards to ten health policy leaders, including Uché Blackstock, MD; Karen A Scott, MD, MPH; Daniel Dawes, JD; and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, JD, MPP.
Over the past ten years, the Reede Scholars have grown not only in size, but in the robustness of their programming. New developments include the Reede Scholars Live Podcast, the annual leadership retreat, and regular online social hours, at which alumni fellows mentor current ones. The Reede Scholars’ essential functions include cultivating and strengthening the fellowship alumni network, as well as amplifying the work of Reede Scholars across the country and striving, as Fleming puts it, “to make health equity an everyday conversation.”
Fleming has also continued her involvement with Harvard in recent years as Director of the Leadership Development to Advance Equity in Health Care executive education program at Harvard Chan School of Public Health. This course is aimed at mid-career healthcare professionals, including physicians, dentists, nurses and administrators from the public and private sectors. “We need people at every level, in every sector, understanding what the issue is, but also having the skills and the network to innovate change,” Fleming explains.
The importance of networks is at the center of Fleming’s work with the Reede Scholars. “We are small but mighty,” she says. “Having a network of people that really span the gamut – who are still on the clinical frontlines, who are in the federal government, who are in philanthropy, who are in Federally Qualified Health Centers and in public health departments—we can find somebody almost anywhere across the country, at any level of public health and health equity. Having that breadth of a network is really unique to us.”
As they celebrate Dr. Fleming’s decade of service, the Reede Scholars look forward to her continued leadership of the organization.
Photo credit: Jeff Thiebauth
June 4, 2024
Thomas Dichter
Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Partnership, Harvard Medical School
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