Esperanza Diaz, MD, professor of psychiatry, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award in Academic Psychiatry by the American Society of Hispanic Psychiatry (ASHP).
The award was presented at the ASHP annual conference May 3 in New York.
The Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes distinguished Hispanic/Latino professionals for their outstanding contributions to the field of psychiatry and mental health. Award recipients are recognized for successful careers, lifetime service, dedication, outstanding community projects, clinical work, and/or education that has impacted the lives of Hispanic/Latino families and patients with mental illness in the United States, Latin America and globally.
Diaz is medical director of the Hispanic Clinic at the Connecticut Mental Health Center. She founded the Yale Department of Psychiatry’s Hispanic Psychiatry Fellowship to address mental health disparities in Latinos. Along with trainees, she developed the Cultural Psychiatry curriculum, a predecessor of the Social Justice and Health Equity curriculum.
Her work with Yale School of Medicine’s Teaching and Learning Center addresses cultural sensitivity and microaggressions management training. Using an experiential model, she leads interview training for residents. She chairs the evaluation committee to review and revise the Yale Psychiatry evaluation system.