School welcomes chief diversity officer

Darin A. Latimore, M.D., has been appointed deputy dean for diversity and inclusion, beginning in January as the School of Medicine’s inaugural chief diversity officer.

Latimore obtained his medical degree at University of California, Davis School of Medicine and completed his residency in internal medicine at University of California, Davis Medical Center. He specialized in HIV care as a physician with the Permanente Medical Group in South Sacramento, Calif., where he also trained medical students and residents before joining UC Davis as a volunteer clinical faculty member in 2002.

His passion for promoting diversity and inclusion stems from his own experiences. As an undergraduate at University of California, Berkeley, he felt isolated on a campus where there were few African-Americans and even fewer students from his modest socioeconomic background.

While serving as associate program director for the UC Davis internal medicine program, he noted that many of the students and residents with whom he worked shared his experiences of isolation and discrimination, prompting him to write a job description that led to his inaugural position as director of medical student diversity at UC Davis in 2008. He later became associate dean for student and resident diversity, developing initiatives to increase the pipeline of socio-economically disadvantaged students, residents, and faculty and spearheading programs to support and empower underrepresented students interested in attending medical school.

“The School of Medicine is strongly committed to promoting racial, gender, ethnic, and socioeconomic diversity,” says Robert J. Alpern, M.D., dean and Ensign Professor of Medicine. “I am pleased that we have recruited such an exceptional candidate to head our efforts at promoting a culture in which all members of our community feel respected and included.”

At Yale, Latimore will coordinate with such groups as the Office of Multicultural Affairs, the Minority Organization for Retention and Expansion (MORE), the Committee on the Status of Women in Medicine (SWIM), the Committee on Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice, and the newly formed Dean’s Advisory Council on LGBTQ Affairs.

Latimore will aid with recruitment efforts to increase diversity within School of Medicine faculty. In addition, he says, “I am looking forward to working with Yale’s student body to develop programming that is more inclusive and to help underserved communities around the Yale campus.”