Leaders Speak Up About Racial Injustice

Given the challenges we as a society face today, our leadership matters more than ever. The events of the past week have brought to the forefront issues of racial injustice that have been undervalued for too long. We have work to do. As higher ambition leaders we are personally and collectively committed to addressing this systemic problem. We share below one particularly powerful leadership voice from our community. Let us not be silent, and let us act.

A message from HALI Alumni Fritz François MD, MSc, FACG, Chief Medical Officer, NYU School of Medicine

Over the past 3 months we have all been deeply involved in the care of COVID-19 patients who have presented with the chief complaint of “I can’t breathe”, and we responded regardless of age, race, gender, or religion.

This week we saw a video where the same plea of “I can’t breathe” was being uttered by George Floyd in a heart wrenching situation where we watched his life being taken away in a scenario reminiscent of Eric Garner 6 years ago.

This week several well publicized events served as stark reminders that the color of the skin of some individuals remains a proxy for preconceived notions of the content of their character.

This week I once again had to have a conversation with my own son about how to prepare himself whenever he steps out of the house so that he will make it back home safely...even if he is just going for a run in the neighborhood.

We can not look away as an institution. We can not silently accept abdication of local and national leadership to speak up in full throated fashion against the undercurrents that have stoked the emotional and actual fires that we are now witnessing and that threaten to singe our nerve endings into numbness.

While these events might not at all be surprising, they are quite disappointing, and fiercely endangering.

As a healthcare community we can’t pretend that we don’t understand the diagnosis here. WE ARE BETTER than this.

All the more reason that this is a leadership moment where we need to give voice to where we stand while further anchoring our culture as an organization by affirming that we do value ALL aspects of P.R.I.D.E. (Performance Respect Integrity Diversity Excellence).

Make no mistake about it, what is going on here is painful.

This isn’t about finding the perfect solution, but rather it is about working towards change by first listening, communicating, understanding, and helping, so that our actions speak louder than our words about standing together against injustice.

“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends” -Martin Luther King Jr.

Please stay safe.

Fritz François, MD, MSc, FACG, Chief Medical Officer, Professor, Department of Medicine, NYU School of Medicine