Mary Tate, MD, MPH, Class of 2018

Graduated Harvard Medical School Class of 2018

Dr. Tate graduated from Harvard Medical School in 2018 and served as President of the Harvard Medical School Chapter of the Student National Medical Association. Dr. Tate also hosts, produces, and edits the Dear Premed podcast, and was a fellow for One Heart World-Wide, a nonprofit that implements maternal and neonatal mortality prevention programs in areas where women often die alone at home giving birth. Dr. Tate graduated from Dartmouth College in 2012 and is currently an OBGYN Resident at McGaw Northwestern.

Interview Transcript (pdf)

 

“I’ve known that I wanted to be a doctor since I was a little girl.  More specifically, I knew that I wanted to be an obstetrician.” (time)

“I was the director of a program called the Dartmouth Alliance for Children of Color, where we brought children who were African, or African American children, mostly children who are adopted into white families, in the Upper Valley area, who come to our school once a week and they hang out with people that look like them.” (time)

“I learned about this organization that was doing work to reduce maternal, or you know, maternal and infant mortality, morbidity, things that were preventable.  So they specialize in working in very remote and rural areas around the world.” (time)

“What does it mean for my community to be able to have been trained at Harvard Medical School, you know?  That was a big part of my calculus in deciding to come here, and thinking about how I could then use this platform, use this privilege, for the communities that I care about.” (time)

“In my entering class, we came in together, 15 students, and said that we’re just going to make this place what we want it to be.  We’re going to make this community strong, and we’re very intentional, and very deliberate about that.” (time)

“We also wanted to make sure that our voices were heard here at the medical school, and across all different levels of the administration.” (time)

“For them to just light up when they see this black girl walking in the room with the rest of her team, which usually was mostly white, and to just look at me with such pride, and such joy in their eyes.” (time)

“I think that the medical school has also done a good job of recognizing that we’re not where we need to be, and so, we have to figure out what to do to make it better.” (time)

“I want my work to center around racial and ethnic inequities in birth outcomes.  So whether that’s maternal mortality or infant mortality, or morbidity in either of those things, I want that to be the centerpiece of the work that I do.” (time)
 

Year
2018
Faculty Member
Off
School Timeline
HMS
Interview
On