Dr. Donald E. Wilson

Dr. Donald E. Wilson

Professor and Dean Emeritus, University of Maryland School of
Medicine
Vice President for Medical Affairs Emeritus, University of
Maryland, Baltimore

Dr. Donald E. Wilson, the nation’s first African American dean of an accredited nonminority medical school, blazed a path in high-level leadership positions. Over decades of work, he has personally welcomed a more diverse population into Maryland medical schools.

He was a dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine from 1991 until he retired in September 2006 and served as the vice president for medical affairs beginning in 1999.  During his tenure, the student body became   more diverse, the number of minority faculty nearly tripled and external research funding more than quadrupled. As a result, the medical school moved into the top 15% nationally in research funding out of 140 public medical schools.

Earlier this year, Wilson was recognized by the Eastern American Heart Association- Eastern States, receiving their Watkins-Saunders Award for his work addressing inequities in health care. He talked about the value of having a diverse medical staff working with the school of medicine.

“I didn’t come to Maryland to increase diversity; I came to Maryland to improve the medical school. I believe you can’t reach the best possibilities unless you have a diverse group of people working with you and advising you,” he said on their website.

Wilson co-founded the Association for Academic Minority Physicians in 1986, an organization dedicated to increasing the diversity of academic medicine and the nation’s biomedical workforce. He currently serves as the principal investigator of a NIH P 20 award and a sub-award through the National Research Mentoring Network — an award designed to help increase the diversity of the nation’s bio-scientific and biomedical workforces. He also served as a senior vice president for health services at Howard University.