Dr. Winston Price, M.D. ’74, a Georgia pediatrician and the president and chair of the National African American Drug Policy Coalition, has been named the National Medical Association’s 2021 Practitioner of the Year.
The annual award recognizes Black physicians who have made major contributions in support of the mission of the NMA, which advocates for the elimination of health disparities and the advancement of the art and science of medicine for people of African descent.
Dr. Price, who served as the organization’s president in 2004-2005, has been involved with the NMA for more than 40 years.
“I’ve worked with some of the greatest and brightest minds in health care and public health advocacy who were my NMA role models, so to be able to stay true to the goal of the organization – and to be recognized by my peers – is a tremendous accolade, especially during this pandemic,” Dr. Price says.
A faculty member at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine (PCOM) and the Medical College of Georgia, he is also chair of the Southwest Georgia Area Health Education Center and Chief Information & Technology Officer for the W. Montague COBB/NMA Health Institute. In addition, he serves as the faculty director for Pathway Programs through the PCOM South Georgia campus, addressing the need for greater numbers of underrepresented physicians in health care, especially in the rural South.
Dr. Price, a Brooklyn native, found his way to Weill Cornell Medical College after meeting Dr. James Curtis, who helped spearhead the institution’s early efforts to attract and retain underrepresented minorities in medicine. Dr. Curtis and Dr. Aaron Wells – a legendary civil rights activist who also taught at Weill Cornell Medicine – were both influential in Dr. Price’s development as a physician, he says. “While I saw the racism that was going on in other medical schools and in other segments of society, I felt comfortable in the Weill Cornell environment,’’ he says. “The breadth and depth of exposure that we were afforded during our medical education allowed us to round ourselves out in a way that created the leadership skills we needed to be successful. And my mission was to give back.”
An active member of the Weill Cornell Medicine community, Dr. Price presented a talk last fall at the Dean’s Quarterly Diversity Seminar on the importance of diversity in clinical research; he also attended the medical college’s Virtual Reunion 2021.
While serving as president of the NMA, Dr. Price focused on maximizing patient outcomes and eliminating health disparities through greater use of technology, data analysis and the implementation of electronic health records. He is encouraged by improvements in health care outcomes, but is disappointed in the lack of progress in realizing many of those successes in Black and other communities of color in the United States. “Millions of folks still remain hampered in realizing the American dream as they struggle to have access to equitable medical care,” Dr. Price says. “Many of the discriminatory and biased practices in health care delivery remain in place today and thus the gap in health care outcomes persist for people of color.
“We have a gas station in every community, a McDonald’s in every community, and we certainly have liquor stores in every community, so why we haven’t developed a sustainable public health plan to put adequate healthcare facilities – with pediatricians, obstetricians, family practitioners and internists – in every single corner of the United States is disheartening, to say the least,” he says. “Knowing that we can do it and aren’t making it happen is even more disturbing.”
In addition, the number of Black men pursuing medicine declined over several decades, with decreases in both applications to medical schools and matriculation between 1978-2014, according to a 2015 report from the Association of American Medical Colleges. (Medical school enrollment among Black men has risen slowly between 2017 and the current academic year, according to AAMC.) “The medical education system has failed to create diversity in the workforce for decades, and the lack of Black males in medicine is incredible in this 21st century,” Dr. Price says.
Dr. Price, who refers to his career as a “calling,” says he will continue to uphold the mission of the National Medical Association as he looks toward a future that will ultimately provide equitable access to health care for all – and a diverse medical workforce that includes more Black male physicians. Retirement is not an option.
“I have a tremendous amount of hope that we can achieve equity and will experience positive trends to that end over the next 20 years,’’ he says.