Abuzeid Is Keynote Speaker at Harry Barnes Medical Society Meeting

As part of the department’s commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and, specifically, the recruitment of diverse candidates into our residency program and our faculty, Waleed Abuzeid, MD, was invited to be a keynote speaker in the Otolaryngology Section at the National Medical Association Convention in New Orleans in July 2023.

The invitation was proffered by the Harry Barnes Medical Society, an organization founded in 1989 by a group of African American otolaryngologists in honor of Dr. William Harry Barnes of Philadelphia, the 37th president of the National Medical Association in 1926. Dr. Barnes was a pioneer and innovator in otolaryngology at a time when minority representation in medicine, let alone surgical subspecialties, was exceedingly rare.

Dr. Abuzeid’s presentation, titled “Aspirin-exacerbated respiratory disease: state-of-the-art multidisciplinary management,” was well received and provided an opportunity to discuss differences in healthcare outcomes related to ethnicity. More importantly, UW representation at the NMA/Harry Barnes Society facilitated discussions with our colleagues nationally about strategies for enhancing and supporting diversity in our field, and allowed for direct encouragement of underrepresented minority undergraduates and medical students with a nascent interest in otolaryngology to pursue their dreams in our specialty.