Wake Forest University School of Medicine is home to numerous outstanding scientific research programs which continually generate groundbreaking discoveries relevant to all aspects of health. Dr. Ebony Boulware has been named the new dean of the school of medicine. In addition to her new role as dean, she serves as chief science officer and vice chief academic officer of Advocate Heath, of which Atrium Health is a part, and is at the forefront of leading the school of medicine as it works to open the second campus in Charlotte. She will work to curate the educational and research collaborations across the Winston-Salem and Charlotte campuses, which will create a unique ecosystem as the academic core of one of the largest academic learning health systems in the country.
Boulware aims to cultivate scientific strengths to address the most pressing health needs of our region and our nation. She hopes to promote collaborative multi-disciplinary programs and build scientific capabilities that will create pathways through which discoveries can be rapidly translated to improve the health of individuals and our communities.
Dean Boulware’s Experience
Boulware – whose parents were both physicians – grew up discussing the importance of social justice and health equity around the dinner table. Her parents cared for patients from diverse and historically underserved backgrounds, which offered Boulware the opportunity to witness, firsthand, the significance of cultivating and maintaining excellence for all individuals.
With this awareness and passion instilled in her, she pursued a career heavily focused in clinical and epidemiological research, a pathway which allowed her to merge her desire to address racial, ethnic and socioeconomic inequities in health. Boulware’s research – which has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Institute and other organizations – has focused on uncovering how patients, health care providers, health care systems and community contexts impact the quality of how health care patients receive their care.
Boulware spent the majority of her research career studying how to improve health equity by understanding how inequities arise at the levels of patients, health care providers, health care systems and within communities. She has been gratified to draw insights from patients, health care providers and diverse community stakeholders to develop and study new interventions to improve health and health equity.
Boulware has published more than 200 manuscripts, book chapters and editorials and has mentored numerous students, residents, fellows and faculty members. She is an elected member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Second Campus in Charlotte
The expansion to Charlotte will train a new generation of talented medical professionals who will extend the school’s goals to improve health throughout a much broader region of North Carolina, the southeastern U.S. and beyond.
Building on the success of outstanding programs in Winston-Salem, she is thrilled to have broken ground on the new Howard R. Levine Center for Education, in Charlotte, which will feature innovative classrooms and technology to support problem-based learning curriculum. Boulware is excited to expand learning opportunities across two outstanding academic teaching clinical centers, which will provide students with unparalleled opportunities to learn clinical medicine from educators practicing medicine in a broad range of disciplines and settings.
The two campuses will be linked to both Winston-Salem's Innovation Quarter and Charlotte's innovation district, “The Pearl,” which will help cultivate synergies across two campuses.
Focused on Health Equity
Boulware is committed to ensuring concepts of health and health equity form a cornerstone for everything. Health is a holistic concept describing a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being. Health equity is achieved when everyone can attain their full potential for health and well-being. Traditionally, medicine has been almost exclusively focused on how to treat illnesses, often with a focus on targeting specific mechanisms that do not account for individuals' personal contexts (i.e., how they work, play and live).
“Medicine has evolved to provide a remarkable number of lifesaving treatments,” says Boulware. “Yet, these advances have not reached all members of society equitably, often because they do not take individuals' personal or community contexts into account. This slows progress for our society, as a whole. We are now entering a new era of medicine in which the principles of health and health equity are widely viewed as fundamental goals.”
Boulware is focused on helping the school of medicine reach new heights of achievement and impact, as it infuses these principles throughout education, research and care to improve health for all.
Translating Science to Medical Care
One of the most important missions of a school of medicine is to advance health and health equity through discovery. The process of “translation” refers to converting knowledge learned from scientific discoveries into tangible vehicles that improve the health of individuals and communities in the real world. Across the U.S. and globally, it can take 15 to 20 years – or more – for many proven discoveries to fully benefit the public. Even when discoveries do reach the public, they are often not delivered equitably among individuals or across diverse communities.
Boulware believes our growing health system will serve as a national model, demonstrating how health and health equity can be achieved at scale through an academic learning health system that embraces exemplary education, innovative research and outstanding care for all individuals.
As dean and chief science officer, Boulware is committed to work with colleagues across the system to transform how we provide health care and make this vision a reality.
