Virginia Caine, MD, an associate professor in the Department of Medicine, now leads the National Medical Association – the largest collective voice of Black and African American physicians in the United States.
Caine was inducted as 125th president of the organization in August, and said she was honored to serve in the role because it shows her colleagues trust her ability to fight for solutions to the country’s leading medical challenges.
Since its founding in 1895, National Medical Association has been a leading force for change within American healthcare, particularly regarding racial and racist health disparities.
In its earliest years, the organization fought discriminatory, segregationist policies that, for example, kept Black patients in substandard wards of “white-only” hospitals, preventing them from receiving adequate care, or barred Black doctors from performing certain procedures, according to its website.
It was instrumental when, generations later, the Civil Rights Movement led to desegregation in hospitals and medical schools and when, with the passage of the Civil Right Act, Black and African Americans gained access to Medicare and Medicaid.
But the National Medical Association has never stopped fighting against poor health outcomes in Black and minority populations. Today, its leaders still testify before state and federal lawmakers, advocating for reform and fighting for research funding, Caine said.
As president, she’ll use her position to continue this work. Already, she’s outlined several areas of focus for her tenure, which include:
- Better utilizing precision medicine, specifically gene cell therapy, to treat sickle cell — an inherited blood cell disease that overwhelming affects Black and African Americans — and ensure it is more affordable
- Fight obesity and its comorbidities, like heart disease and diabetes, and end stigmas surrounding the condition
- Address accidental deaths and homicides among children and those under the age of 25, specifically gun related deaths
- Eliminate HIV by increasing medication use among vulnerable populations
Services as an advocate is not a new role for Caine.
In addition to being an IU School of Medicine faculty member, Caine services as the Marion County Public Health Department Director. She previously served as the president for American Public Health Association, the nation’s oldest and largest public health organization; and she has been an expert on several Centers for Disease Control and Prevention panels, most notably one tasked with drafting CDC guidelines on sexually transmitted diseases.
As an infectious disease specialist, her clinical interests include HIV and its associated opportunistic infections, skin and soft tissue infections, bacteremia and sepsis.
Caine earned her medical degree from State University of New York Upstate Medical Center. She completed her residency at the University of Cincinnati and a fellowship at the University of Washington in Seattle. Before joining the IU School of Medicine faculty in 1994, she worked at Johns Hopkins University for over 10 years.
