Inspirational Black Men and Women in Medicine: Steve Beard of Adtalem Global Education Chief Executive Officer on 5 Things You Need to Create a Successful Career in Medicine

An Interview With Jamie Hemmings

We also know that we cannot emulate what we don’t see. For young Black people who may aspire to become a doctor or take on another role in medicine, we need to ensure that they have Black professionals to look up to. This not only provides them with mentors who understand their lived experience and the potential roadblocks they may have faced, but also shows them that there is someone out there who looks like them doing the job they hope to do someday. It creates possibility — and there’s nothing more powerful than that.

In the United States today, Black doctors are vastly underrepresented. Only 5% of physicians nationwide are Black. Why is it so important to have better representation? What steps can be taken to fix this discrepancy? In this interview series, we are talking to successful Black men and women in medicine about their career, their accomplishments, and how others may follow their path. As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Steve Beard.

Steve Beard is president and Chief Executive Officer at Adtalem Global Education, a national leader in post-secondary education and a leading provider of professional talent to the healthcare industry, committed to addressing critical talent shortages and advancing diversity, equity and access in healthcare. Before taking on his current role as CEO in 2021, Steve served as Adtalem’s Chief Operating Officer.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood “backstory”?

I was born in Chicago and raised on the city’s South side. My father was a transit worker and my mother worked as an administrative assistant. I have a younger sister. We were of modest means, but our home was filled with an abundance of love. My parents stressed the importance of education and hard work and I’m grateful for that.

Ultimately, I would be the first in my family to attend and complete college — a source of great pride for my parents. However, and as you might expect, doing so required me to navigate (and not always gracefully) the inevitable, financial, social and cultural pitfalls of being a first-generation college student.

Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I attended the University of Illinois, where I studied political science. After graduation, I worked in banking for a short while before attending law school at Indiana University. After completing law school, I went to work as a law clerk for the honorable Frank Sullivan Junior (ret.) Associate Justice of the Indiana Supreme Court. Justice Sullivan was a fantastic public servant and a great mentor. For a young man fresh out of law school and eager to embark on a path to make real difference in the world, exposure to Justice Sullivan’s worldview was an incredible way to begin one’s career.

While I’ve enjoyed a professionally satisfying career, it’s now, in my role as the leader of Adtalem that I’m able to fully realize my ambition of making an outsized difference in the lives of people. The work that we do at Adtalem is mission driven and purpose led. We are committed to creating opportunities for students to realize their academic and professional ambitions, particularly in healthcare. And notably, we do it in a model that isn’t rooted in selectivity or historical prestige, but one that’s committed to expanding access to these careers in ways that serve as a genuine engine for economic mobility and, just as importantly, address chronic workforce shortages in healthcare.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Keep the main thing the main thing.” Know what you’re playing for — know your north star. In life and in business distractions are abundant, so it pays to ensure that you are focusing attention and allocating resources in support of your highest and most important priorities. That’s particularly true when you’re leading large teams or complex organizations where the ability of those groups to focus attention and act decisively can become a durable competitive advantage.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

In my first professional role out of college, I attended a formal luncheon for participants in the bank’s analyst program. When I sat down at my assigned table, I had never seen so many pieces of flatware and so many glasses in my life. It was bewildering for someone of my background. Once the lunch began, I wasn’t entirely sure how to proceed so I looked to the analyst to my left and looked to the analyst to my right (both of whom seemed completely at ease), watched what they did and mimicked it accordingly. When they reached with the salad fork, I reached for the salad fork and when they reached for their water glass, I knew which one was mine. It was one of those awkward formative experiences that reminds you that it’s ok not to know, we learn when we try.

You are a successful leader. Which three-character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

In three words, its resilience, tenacity and grit. For Black professionals the obstacles to success tend to start early and persist throughout one’s career. However, you can choose to persevere despite these realities, to find motivation in the inevitable setbacks and not to take the actions of others personally. Cultivating resilience, tenacity and grit makes it easier to commit oneself to excellence and power through the inevitable setbacks.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. This might seem intuitive to you, but it would be helpful to articulate this expressly. Can you share three reasons with our readers why it’s really important for there to be more diversity in medicine?

Diversity in the medical profession is important for several reasons:

1. Better understanding of diverse patient populations: A diverse medical workforce can better understand the needs and cultural nuances of diverse patient populations. They can provide culturally competent care, which helps to improve patient outcomes.

2. Addressing healthcare disparities: Wide healthcare disparities are observed among minority populations. Having a diverse medical workforce can help address these issues, as they are better equipped to understand and mitigate them.

3. Encouraging inclusion and equity: A diverse medical workforce can create a more inclusive and equitable healthcare system. Patients are more likely to feel comfortable and trust their healthcare provider if they see someone who looks like them in the profession.

4. Promoting innovation and creativity: A diverse workforce can bring different perspectives and ideas to the table, leading to innovative and creative solutions in the medical field.

We also know that we cannot emulate what we don’t see. For young Black people who may aspire to become a doctor or take on another role in medicine, we need to ensure that they have Black professionals to look up to. This not only provides them with mentors who understand their lived experience and the potential roadblocks they may have faced, but also shows them that there is someone out there who looks like them doing the job they hope to do someday. It creates possibility — and there’s nothing more powerful than that.

As things stand today, what are the main barriers for Black men and women to enter the medical field?

As noted above, it’s important for young people to see others who look like them doing the jobs they wish to pursue. Currently, just 5% of physicians are Black, as you noted at the start of this interview, compared with more than 56% of white doctors. While there’s no one reason for why this is happening, we can point to a few systemic factors that create this issue — including the admissions process for medical school.

In 2021, Black people comprised just over 11% of the student population at traditional medical schools. This may be due to unconscious bias during the admission process, or to other factors that remain barriers in securing a spot. At Adtalem, we’re committed to removing those barriers because they’re creating societal issues. We can’t have a truly equal society if our doctors and other healthcare professionals do not look like the patients they serve.

At our institutions, many of our students are adult learners facing a variety of different life circumstances. They’re often working parents taking on school to improve their families’ lives, or they’re pursuing a dream deferred. Combined, our medical schools graduate more Black physicians, male and female, than any other U.S. medical school — at more than 100 a year.

From your perspective, can you share a few things that can be done by the community, society, or the government, to help remove those barriers?

Our society must invest in education as a means of achieving diversity in medicine. We know that research shows the power of equity in healthcare — it creates better outcomes for all. We can get there by ensuring that young people, especially those from underrepresented populations, know they can be anything they want to be — and ensure they have the avenues to get there. This could look like schools investing in pilot programs in STEM to help students see the different career fields available to them or creating mentorship opportunities with Black professionals in underserved communities.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me when I first started my career in medicine,” and why? Please share a story or example for each.

I’m not sure that I have five for you but, at a minimum, I wished someone had told me when I started my career that (i) temporary setbacks are just that: temporary, (ii) it’s up to you to manage your own career and while hard work is essential, so is setting aside time for reflection and recovery, and (iii) it’s never too early to start building a network. Looking back, I also didn’t immediately grasp the extent to which medicine is as much an art as science. And while medicine is absolutely an applied science, the art of healing is deeply rooted in compassion, empathy and an understanding of people. I have come to appreciate that across our academic institutions we place appropriate emphasis on both sides of that coin.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

If I could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, the one thing I’ve always reflected on is the idea of national service for all. Not necessarily military service, but taking our young people just before they start their post-secondary careers or work and bringing them together from various corners of the country to work together on something in service of a common good and to get to know people of different races, cultures, backgrounds, and regions in ways that give them an appreciation for the diversity of the country and why that diversity is a source of strength and not a source of weakness. You wouldn’t know it from the divisiveness of our public discourse, but there is more that unites us as Americans than divides us — if we are willing to embrace it.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Warren Buffet. His knack for identifying overlooked and undervalued opportunities that have strong potential for growth in the long-term is remarkable. And his strong ethical values and commitment to philanthropy at scale are incredibly admirable.

How can our readers best continue to follow your work online?

You can visit the Adtalem Global Education website at www.adtalem.com, and on LinkedIn at @adtalemglobaleducation. You can also follow me on Twitter at @stephenwbeard.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.