Dr. Frank Douglas' Odyssey: Championing Equity and Innovation in the Pharmaceutical World

[00:00:00] Ellington Brown: Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown! 

[00:00:14] Rita Burke: On SpeakUP! International, we've had the good fortune or the privilege of speaking with people from all over the world. Today, we're centering ourselves on Jersey, where we're speaking to Dr. Frank Douglas. Now, Dr. Douglas grew up in Guyana.

Both his first and last names are grounded in significance. He says that he's had a rough start in life. At the age of 12, Dr. Douglas had a life changing experience. After fear saved him from a watery suicide attempt and he learned his father's true identity. Dr. Douglas was awarded a scholarship at the age of 20 to study chemistry in America.

And these are only a few important points. Um, making about Dr. Douglas is more to come as we have our conversation. Welcome Dr. Frank Douglas to SpeakUP! International. 

[00:01:26] Dr. Frank Douglas: Thank you for the invitation. I'm looking forward to it. 

[00:01:29] Ellington Brown: That makes two of us, doctor! Tell us about your beginnings from, let's say, birth to about 12 years old, .

[00:01:40] Dr. Frank Douglas: Well, as Rita mentioned, I grew up in Guyana in the capital city, Georgetown, in very humble circumstances, uh, had a critical event where I, uh, contemplated suicide and, but, uh, stepped away from it as the thought of what drowning would be like just, uh, walled, walled in me. Uh, returned home and, uh, she mentioned, actually discovered something that I did not know, namely the identity, the true identity of my father.

That set me on a path that actually was really quite religious. I realized that I had really, I was in a dark place in the real sense. And I was attending an evangelical church at the time, Elam Evangelical Church. So, I went to the pastor and became saved, gave my heart to the Lord. And that was a critical event and a life changing event.

I became a good student, in fact, a top student in a couple of the exams in Guyana, I actually placed first in the country. Uh, that ended up with my being recognized somehow by a number of countries, but particularly the Fulbright program in America. And I was offered a Fulbright scholarship, uh, at the age of 20 to come to America, where I entered Lehigh University, uh, not far from your home in Philadelphia, that's in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, uh, to study, uh, chemistry.

Uh, I was, uh, very diligent in my studies, completed the program in three years, uh, went on to Cornell and, uh, did a PhD in physical chemistry, worked at Xerox for a couple of years, and something significant happened with respect to discrimination. Which caused me actually to go back to school, to medical school this time.

So I have both a PhD and a medical degree, uh, trained at Johns Hopkins, uh, in internal medicine and at the NIH, uh, in what is called neuroendocrinology. And was a, a, um, hospital based, uh, physician for a while at the University of Chicago Pritzker's medical school, uh, when I was discovered by the pharmaceutical industry.

So I then spent the next, uh, 24 years within this pharmaceutical industry. Uh, where, in spite of discrimination, I actually, uh, rose to the, to the C suite, becoming the first black, uh, to be on the board of management of a top five global pharmaceutical company, as executive vice president, responsible for for global research development and regulatory affairs, uh, after my retirement, 2004, I went back to academia at M.I.T., uh, unfortunately, uh, a discrimination case there really, uh, troubled me significantly that I actually resigned my, uh, position as professor and head of the center for bio. Uh, bioinnovation at M. I. T. 

[00:05:18] Rita Burke: What a resume! Several different careers. You crisscrossed, you worked in chemistry, you worked as an MD, and you've got a PhD. Fascinating. Help me, I want to go back to something you said earlier about, You're tempted or close to tempted wanting out of this world. Why would a 12 year old want that?

[00:05:43] Dr. Frank Douglas: It was rather interesting. We lived in a very small, there were three, three rooms basically, my mother and Her four kids at the time lived in one room. Uh, my mother worked as a seamstress and for some reason, I don't understand why. Uh, my aunt and she and her, her, uh, four or five kids, uh, my grandmother and grandfather and, and another aunt lived in the other tulums.

But for some reason, she would invariably tell tales on me when my mother returned home in the, in the evening, and invariably my mother would punish me, um, in order to keep the peace in the real sense, and I understood that. Uh, one day, however, uh, I, uh, every Saturday, it was my job to go to the market to buy the, the goods as we would call it for the week, the border market.

Uh, you probably know border market. And, uh, we lived, uh, Morris Street, about two miles away. I would walk back, of course, with a basket of goods. But that Saturday, I actually, for the first Saturday, had a bicycle. My grandfather had bought me a secondhand bike. So, I was really excited about this. And, uh, returning home, as I turned into the yard, it suddenly occurred to me that it was actually quite sandy and sloped downwards.

But before I could do anything, I had a tremendous spell. And unfortunately, everything spilled, the, the bottle with the cooking oil, as we would call it, that spilled, the flour was a mess. The only thing that really was saved, uh, were the ground provisions, as we would call it, plantain and cassava. Uh, I got in while I could together, and by the time I reached the room, my mother, uh, had the belt out and just was furious.

And I'd never seen her in such a fury, whooping me all over. And I said, why? And she told me that, uh, auntie that had said that she saw me purposefully push the basket off the handle. And because I did not want to go to the market. And I just had had it and, uh, decided that. It's point living anymore.

[00:08:16] Rita Burke: Talk about trauma for a child. Thanks for sharing that experience with us.

[00:08:21] Ellington Brown: I want to talk about something that was good. Talk to us about your Fulbright scholarship please? 

[00:08:28] Dr. Frank Douglas: Yes, I had already completed high school and actually, uh, for us at that time, there was no university in Guyana. So, most of us, uh, we worked for two, three years to gather money to, uh, go off to college, whether it was in Jamaica, Canada, or many of us in England. So, I had started working at, at that point, I'd been working about a year and a half, uh, when I was called by the United States Information Services, uh, to inform me that I had, uh, been granted a Fulbright scholarship.

And of course, I knew at that time, nothing about America. I didn't know anyone in Ghana who studied in America. Actually, they asked me where I would like to go study. I said, I had no idea. I'll go and ask my teachers, my former teachers, a couple of them said the best schools are on the East Coast. So I went back to them and I said, I'd like to be on the East Coast.

And then they said, well, based on your, your grades and your performance in math and chemistry, we think you should do engineering and a great engineering school on the East Coast is Lehigh University. And I said, Lehigh. I've already completed high school. It sounds to me like a high school and she said Lehigh.

And then she explained, no, that was actually a university. Lehigh University. Uh, so a month later, uh, here I was, uh, arrived at that time. It was, um. Um, is it, uh, no, that wasn't that while, but I arrived at JFK and, um, spent the night in New York City, which for me was quite amazing. Uh, I was in this hotel, probably about the 20th floor and I went down, walked around.

It was just off of Times Square. So, all of these bright lights and, uh, you know, at 8, 9 o'clock at home in Guyana, everything is dark. You know, people are in bed. There are not many streetlights. So, it was just amazing. Uh, the following day, um, uh, they put me on a bus to, uh, to Yale for a, um, an orientation program, uh, for the, the Lehigh, uh, The Lehigh, sorry, for the, um, Fulbright fellows, uh, usually the Fulbright program is a graduate program, but, uh, often they have a small number of undergraduates.

And at that, at that time, there were, I think, 6 undergraduates, uh, I being 1 of them, and then I, something occurred, happened. That was a shock to me. I experienced. What I then learned had, uh, uh, Dr. King had said, I arrived incidentally, I should say. I arrived about 10 days before Dr. King's march in Washington in 1963, in August of 1963.

And I discovered later that he had made the statement that one day he hopes that his children would be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. Thank you. And within three days of being in America, uh, I unfortunately experienced being judged by the color of my skin.

The following happened. Uh, we were, uh, in various seminars and I was supposed to give a talk and that morning I awoke with tremendous pain. And so I went to the Uh, the lecture room as early as I could to be able to talk to the professor, explain to him that I was really in tremendous pain. I needed to figure out how to see a doctor.

And he said, you know, you black students are always trying to find ways to get out of work. Now that you are a Fulbright scholar, you're going to have to learn to work hard, earn to earn this, uh, uh, this accommodation that you have received. Fortunately for me, I knew where to find the director of the program.

So I hobbled, uh, got to him. He immediately took me to the Yale New Haven hospital where I was for about 10 days. Uh, and 

[00:12:57] Rita Burke: So what happened with what happened to that professor that

[00:13:00] Dr. Frank Douglas: I have no idea. I, you know, I had absolutely, uh, 1st of all, I was just amazed by this, but I had no idea what my recourse was. I, I just wanted to see a doctor to find out what was going on and be treated and. Uh, be, be off to college and, uh, that, uh, you know, that was it.

[00:13:20] Rita Burke: I'm particularly curious about the safe haven dialogues. Talk to our listeners about that, please. 

[00:13:28] Dr. Frank Douglas: May I share with you an anecdote because it will put it in perspective. Uh, when I completed my PhD, I was hired by Xerox as an assistant scientist. And for three months, I could not get a good project. And one day, a young white man joined the group.

And within one week, he was put on what was the most attractive project we had in research and development in Xerox at the time. Uh, I went to my manager with the usual question, when will I get a good project? And suddenly, I said to him, look, Steve, Don't think of me as though I'm Frank. Think of me as though I'm Bob.

And I was stunned to see the recognition come over his face as he said to me, you know, Bob has been here a week and I have put him on the artery project. I was furious. I raced out of his office, down to the office of the senior vice president to give him another example of my being discriminated against.

Now, about two years later, I reflected on that incident and realized that I had made two errors. One, Dr. Tribus, that senior vice president, that summer, Had hired three young black PhD, I being one of them, to join the one black PhD that Xerox had at the time. He had made it very clear that he wanted to have more black PhDs in the research and development department.

So it probably was more important to him that Frank Douglas would do well than it was to Frank Douglas. So, I totally missed that. The second thing I missed was what was my desired outcome. It certainly was not for the Senior Vice President to have tough words with my manager. It was to get a good project.

So, had I reframed my conversation, had I gone to the Senior Vice President and simply said, Dr. Tribus, could you help my manager find me a good project? He was three levels above my manager. It would have happened yesterday. I probably would have retired from Xerox.

In 20, end of 2018, I was writing my memoirs. When I was writing this incident in my memoirs, and it suddenly occurred to me that, as a matter of fact, I had learned from that incident, because what I realized is that the way I had handled conflict situations and discrimination situations thereafter, Was to really try to find out what was my desired outcome and to reframe the situation.

Now, in May, 2020, as many of us, I was sitting at the TV watching Lloyd f Floyd being murdered and looking at the, the people on the sidelines during their darnest to get Chauvin to take his knee off of uh, Floyd's neck, uh, at. It gets me very sad, uh, with no veil. And as I looked at it, two thoughts occurred to me.

One was, in spite of all of the empathetic people on the sidelines, there was an individual, one person, who, that day, was actually being killed. And in my experience, not only my own, but in helping others facing discrimination, there was usually one individual who was being affected, and often, when you talk to that individual and say, well, did you discuss it?

Did you do this? You often would get, yes, I talked to them, but they weren't listening. They didn't hear me. So, the individual being heard came across to me. The second thing was, I wondered if George Floyd had been taught how to reframe. Could he have avoided this whole situation?

So, those two things. Let me to set up safe haven dialogues to do two things to focus on individuals and to empower them to have the type of dialogue by their reframing their situation so they could have a productive outcome. 

[00:17:57] Ellington Brown: I would agree with you. Sometimes you need to think twice before you proceed.

Sometimes it gives you the extra piece of the map that maybe you didn't have before, which can lead you either around it or through it, which brings me to what is equity, inclusion and individual engagement. What does that mean to you and how do you apply that to combat discrimination? 

[00:18:35] Dr. Frank Douglas: I throughout my time in America, as I observed life in America, I have become convinced. That for all organizations, including the family, there are two fundamental things, equity and inclusion. The leaders form the principles and the values of equity by which the organization, the family are going to live.

And the family members, the employees, the students, they agree on the behaviors. Which will ensure that each other is valued, that everyone is included, et cetera. So equity comes from the leaders. They drive that. And inclusion from the frontline managers and the co workers. So this for me is the focus. And when you look at organizations, when they're dysfunctional or if an individual is experiencing a different type of culture than that which the organization professors that they have, invariably one of those two things is not functioning or both for that particular individual.

The second part, individual engagement, comes from the following. During my now 60 years in America, I've become, and remember, I started off in the evangelical church, so you can understand how alarming it is to me to see evangelicals saying and doing the things that they're doing today. Uh, you know, the basic thing that Christ taught is love your neighbor as yourself.

So, uh, to me, it's, I don't, so. It has been very clear to me for quite a number of years that America is no longer moved by the moral imperative of something. What moves America is the business case, is what is the profit going to be like? Now, Gallup, the organization Gallup, for more than 30 years, has studied hundreds of thousands of employees and employees.

I think 64 countries, 96 different industries, and they have found the following, those companies that are in the top quartile where the employees say that they are fully engaged, those companies have 23%, 24% greater productivity, greater profitability, 40% lower absenteeism, et cetera. And those companies that are in the bottom quartile.

Are doing poorly with respect to those metrics. So I have, when I formed Safe Haven Dialogues, uh, I said to my colleagues whom I brought together is that what we will also do is to say to organizations DEI is very important. The diversity part got us through the door, got us in the door, but now it's become a metrics game, counting numbers.

Thank you. Those individuals who've come in still have the problems of equity and inclusion. They're still not being represented in the higher levels, etc. They're still not being recognized when they raise their hands in project meetings, etc. They're not being included. So instead of the metric being how many diverse people we bring in, the metric should be how many individuals we have who are motivated, who are engaged.

Hence, Equity, inclusion, and individual engagement, or EIIE.

[00:22:46] Rita Burke: You've said so many things that I would like to hone in on, but the one thing that's dancing around in my head is the term reframing. How would you explain the reframing process, please? The one that you use? 

[00:23:05] Dr. Frank Douglas: Yes. Uh, to reframe something, uh, and reframe, we use generally, to reframe something is indeed to find an alternate way of looking at that thing to find a different solution.

And we actually reframe a lot, you know, many times when we are faced with problems and we realize we can't go through that problem, we go around it, we basically reframe, we try to find a way around it. Specifically what we say is the following, and again, I'll be a little bit anecdotal here. An employee is facing discrimination.

The employee goes to, uh, their manager to complain about the discrimination they're facing immediately. That manager, no matter how well he or she is strained, no matter how empathetic, immediately they become defensive. Just natural.

Now, same employee, instead of discussing the discrimination, goes to the manager and says, I have noticed in my work unit, the following is happening. For example, I've noticed that there's some of us, when we raise our hands, we're not being, uh, called upon, et cetera, which means. That there is some information that is not being fully shared.

You know, full knowledge is not getting to the team. Uh, is there something that you can do to improve the team dynamics? That's a different conversation. And then the employee says, and as a matter of fact, if you were to do that, it actually would help my problem because I'm 1 of those individuals who is frequently passed over that is reframing the problem.

It's about discrimination, but instead of going and. Giving the example of being discriminated for front, we find another problem and what we say is to reframe, we have to find a better problem to solve. Now, what's a better problem to solve? A better problem to solve is one in which the solution of that problem, not only satisfies the aggrieved, but also benefits others in the work unit or group in which that individual comes.

So I say it goes from the aggrieved I to the productive we. So, for us, reframing is helping an individual understanding what is their desired outcome, but sometimes, you know, we are so upset. We really don't focus on our desired outcome, understanding the desired outcome, understanding what are the issues around equity and inclusion that are, that are leading to this outcome.

Conflict or discriminatory situation and trying to find a better problem to solve. And once we find that better problem to solve, then we reframe the problem. 

[00:26:15] Rita Burke: I hear that. I understand that very well. And so reframing, there's no question that it could help us solve our individual issues and collective issues.

So, at what point would you suggest that we begin to teach the whole concept to, children to people? Where do you see that happening? 

[00:26:42] Dr. Frank Douglas: Uh, I had started my focus because most of my life has been, uh, in academia and in industry certainly, you know, as I looked at my life in America, uh, in, in college, in graduate school, in medical school, particularly lots and lots of issues of, uh, of discrimination.

Fortunately for me, as a matter of fact, I went to medical school after I'd completed a PhD in a year and a half at Xerox. And as I look back and how I handled things in medical school, I was reframing and I have a wonderful example of what happened, uh, at a critical time that that was my focus and it remains my focus, namely employees.

And students in higher education. However, I was doing a, uh, a book launch, uh, sorry, a book signing, uh, at Lehigh University, and in the audience was an assistant superintendent of, uh, one of the districts. Uh, and she came up to me, asked for my, my phone number and, uh, followed up with a call. She and, uh, uh, three of her, uh, colleagues and their question was, would I be willing to consider doing a program for high school students?

And so we started that conversation. Unfortunately, she then got promoted, moved to another district. She was assistant superintendent. She reached out to me to let me know that she had moved. And as soon as she had settled in, et cetera, and she got the lay of the land where she is, um, she will get back, uh, to me for that discussion.

But as I think about it, I think she's probably right starting at high school, but my present focus is. Uh, students, uh, uh, uh, in college, uh, and university and, uh, employees. 

[00:28:41] Ellington Brown: So are these students marginalized individuals or do they come from all walks of life? 

[00:28:50] Dr. Frank Douglas: One of the questions I have been asked is why do I say systemic discrimination, not systemic racism?

And in answer to your question, it is purposeful because Whether it is gender, whether it is ethnicity, whether it's religion, whether it's sexual orientation, whether it's ageism, discrimination is discrimination. It's a power group using biases to the detriment of another group. So, although I am focused, not primarily, uh, perhaps, um, with particular emphasis on marginalized individuals, such as BIPOC minority groups, such as women in the workplace who cannot, um, you know, uh, uh, ascend, uh, the, the, the corporate ladder, um, LGBTQ, et cetera.

Uh, but anyone who has been discriminated against for age, for example, uh, we are willing to, uh, to engage and use the reframing process.

[00:29:59] Rita Burke: You mentioned George Floyd. And perhaps if he understood the concept of reframing, things may have turned out a little differently. How about if we think about the police officer concerned, should he too have understood what reframing meant and tried to apply it in this particular situation? 

[00:30:25] Dr. Frank Douglas: Absolutely! In fact, one of the things which I'm offering, uh, particularly to companies, Is to train their managers, because part of the process, actually, we have a group whom we call our VIPs, victors, pardon me, victors, overcoming injustice in their profession. Uh, who review the case and evaluate the case with respect to issues of equity and inclusion and the plot matrix we have equity inclusion culture matrix.

Uh, which helps stimulate the approach to finding the better problem to solve. Uh, so to, to train, uh, individuals, they could be managers, they could be, uh, individuals who are recognized as, you know, uh, leaders, uh, in their organization to be VIPs and so they can conduct, uh, the process. But to your, uh, point, and it's, uh, it's, it's really an excellent question.

It would have been great, particularly, particularly for the three, I think there were three, 

uh, you know, other police who were on looking, had they had this, they might have been able to get Chauvin to take his knee off of George Floyd's neck.

[00:31:47] Ellington Brown: What achievements in the pharmaceutical industry that made you the renowned drug innovator?

[00:31:56] Dr. Frank Douglas: Um, I have been fortunate in that I led the teams. They have put more than 25 drugs in the market, drugs such as Allegra, and as a matter of fact, if you ever take Allegra for, uh, hay fever, um, uh, seasonal, uh, seasonal rhinitis, that was one I did from start to finish. Uh, but yes, but drugs like, uh, Allegra Lantus, which is probably the number one long acting, um, uh, uh, insulin, uh, for the treatment of, of diabetes or insulin like drug, I should say.

It's not an insulin. Um, so drugs like that, drugs for, um, uh, arthritis, uh, Taxotere for, for cancer drugs, for osteoporosis. So During the time that I was Global Head of Research and Development, we were really very productive, that's one. I also introduced a number of things to the way we do drug discovery, and although I'm not recognized for it outside of those who know this business, I was the first, for example, to introduce, we called it clinical biology, but the concept of Identifying parameters in a patient and looking at the mechanism that we were using to find a drug and doing early studies to determine whether indeed that compound with that mechanism would have a clinical effect.

Now, that has progressed into, you know, certain, uh, approach to clinical, uh, medicine. Today we call it precision medicine, it was personalized medicine, uh, at one time. In fact, when I was at MIT, I have an important paper on personalized medicine. Um, you know, so that's one of the things I introduced. Another thing I introduced, uh, uh, uh, actually, of which I'm very proud and something that few very people know, uh, and that is.

In, in, in 2000, I had been asked to share with, uh, pardon me,

to share, uh, a, a keynote, uh, address at a drug discovery, uh, conference in, uh, in Boston and, uh, I'm sorry, his name is escaping me, but, uh, Uh, with the guy who was really responsible for accelerating the, uh, ability to decipher the human, uh, genome. And I awoke in a sweat, uh, one day that January, because I hadn't thought about it, and it suddenly occurred to me, in March, I'm going to be facing Uh, this crowd, and, uh, he would have gone, uh, before me, and then I would have thought, what was I going to say?

You know, here's this big earth shattering thing. What do I have to say? Uh, I spent some time with my, um, with my direct, uh, reports, uh, really challenging them with respect to what are the big challenges that we have. And as we were discussing, the light bulb went off. And I said, here's what's going to happen.

His name is escaping me, uh, he will come up and he will say, we now know how many kinases they are in the body, how many proteases they are in the body, how many ion channels, et cetera. And he will say, now we know, we know all the genes that they are, how many genes they are that make these things. And we know that 60 percent of the drugs that we make are based on four or five of those things, kinases, proteases, et cetera.

Now, this becomes a knowledge game. And so, what I will do is I will get up and introduce the concept of chemical biology in drug discovery in the pharmaceutical industry. It was just being introduced, the concept, in Harvard, and in fact, almost every chemistry department is now chemistry and chemical biology, so named.

And so, I started that whole movement. Of doing drug discovery from a chemical biology perspective, uh, which. Has become quite, uh, productive in the industry. 

[00:36:34] Rita Burke: You've been a first in quite a number of things. My next question to you, Dr. Douglas, was going to be, could you identify a time when you had to say enough?

But I will not ask you that question because you've brought, you've woven that theme right through our conversations today. My question then is going to be, Is there a quotation, a quote from someone that you admire that really grounds or guides your life? Is there a quotation that you like and that resonates with you?

[00:37:12] Dr. Frank Douglas: Ah, there probably are a couple. One is the wise man Solomon saying, Of the making of books there is no end, And much study is awareness to the flesh, but here the conclusion of the whole matter, fear God and keep his commandments. And, uh, that's one which pairs with me. Uh, the other is from Shakespeare, where Portia says to Shylock, The quality of mercy is not strained.

It droppeth as the gentle dew from heaven upon the places we need. It blesses those it gives. It becomes the monarch better than the crown, et cetera. So, the issues of mercy and justice. And impartiality and fearing God, those are things that have guided my life and continue to guide my life. 

[00:38:13] Ellington Brown: So how has your experiences, personal, and at the workplace, how have they helped you work with the marginalized individuals within a community?

[00:38:30] Dr. Frank Douglas: Oh, within the community. Um, when I was in Chicago at the University of Chicago's head of the hypertension clinic, I actually, uh, in collaboration with Chicago Heart Association, the church based hypertension screening program. And, uh, worked, uh, with, uh, some of the churches to do high blood pressures, uh, screening.

Uh, that work was actually recognized by the American Heart Association, uh, with a very nice, uh, very nice award. Uh, I actually, I think,

What could have been, unfortunately, um, it only lasted about 6 years after I left, uh, when I retired or resigned actually from MIT, a couple of years later, I was recruited by the University of Akron and the 3 hospitals. Uh, the two adult hospitals, the Children's Hospital in Akron and the Northeast, uh, uh, University of Ohio Medical School to come to them and set up an institute.

It turns out the Polymer College, uh, or I should say the College of Polymer Science and Engineering is probably after MIT, uh, uh, the best such in, in the U. S. And, uh, they wanted to leverage their polymer strength, uh, to come up with solutions for various illnesses, be they cell based, uh, you know, implants, et cetera.

And, uh, so I joined and created what is called then after, it's named after, um, Dr. Austin, the Austin Bioinnovation Institute. In Akron and introduced the number, a couple of firsts, the, uh, in a way, uh, to take things from the lab to the bedside. One was the my VV six, uh, my v uh, V six innovation process. Uh, however, what was important about that is that we also had, uh, a, an approach which we.

Brought together, I think at that time was about 60, 60 organizations in the community to inclu, including, and uh, and they were one of the leaders of the county medical, uh, organization to provide healthcare for poor people because they recognized, and we did the numbers that many individuals were using the emergency room.

As their private physician, and that actually was more costly to the hospitals. Then if they had an organization like this. Along with the neighborhood, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, organizations. Which as a matter of fact, gave free care provided. It was really organized and people were being triage rather than just getting up in the middle of the night.

And running to the hospital. So we called it our Accountable Care Community, uh, ACC, and that was something which introduced. And as a matter of fact, uh, the colleague who, who reported to me and was the lead of it, uh, actually was recognized by President Obama, uh, for that work, received a medal from President Obama, uh, for that concept that I had introduced.

Yeah, she's Dr. Janowski. 

[00:42:29] Rita Burke: We saw a video of you receiving an award, and you also spoke about another award. Talk to our audience, please, about your awards with an S at the end, please. 

[00:42:45] Dr. Frank Douglas: Well, I've been blessed. I've received many recognitions for the contributions. That I've been able to make one of them. I'm really very proud of.

And there's a quite a story behind it, which we don't have time to go through or why it's special. Uh, but in 2007, I was actually, uh, uh, 1 of 2 who was awarded the black history maker award and people like, uh, Sydney Portier, like types of people who've gotten that award in the past. Um, I was the, I am actually the only person to have won the following award twice, namely the, uh, director of the, the global director of the year, uh, award in the pharmaceutical industry.

My only person to have won that, uh, twice. And what is special with that award, that is not an award that is actually. Uh, given by the pharmaceutical industry is rather there's a committee of, uh, of, uh, of investors and, uh, academicians, et cetera, whom they brought would bring together to identify the, uh, the winners. 

 Since, uh, uh, uh, Ms. Burke is, uh, uh, from the Caribbean area, uh, I received the, uh, uh, the West Indies foundation luminary award, uh, and, uh, you know, for entrepreneurship, et cetera. Uh, that's very special to me.

[00:44:16] Ellington Brown: Notice how I'm giving you a longer pause just in case you come up with yet another award that you, that you have won. And I'm sure all of them are well deserved. So, can you tell me what equity inclusion culture matrix, what is that and what does that mean to organizational cultures?

[00:44:41] Dr. Frank Douglas: You know, it's, it's very important. You go to the website of any cooperation, for example, or, or university, they will tell you what their values are, and they will describe their culture and I call, you know, that that is. The culture, uh, to which they aspire, but then you go into that organization and you find depending on the department that you visit, the culture is being practiced a little bit differently, you know, and that is the realistic culture.

But for any particular individual, that individual may be experiencing something quite different. That's the experience culture. So what we do, we have a very simple way. Um, of measuring equity, we have a few parameters, very simple to measure equity, a few parameters to measure inclusion, and we plot the typical 2 by 2 plot and divide it into 4 quadrants, equity versus inclusion.

And if equity is high and inclusion is high, you're in the top right hand quadrant, that's the place where you are going to find a psychologically safe environment, you'll find engaged individuals. If on the other hand, you go diagonally down to the left, bottom left quadrant. Where equity is low, inclusion is low.

You have there a psychologically toxic culture. That's where you'll find distressed employees where employees are looking to leave the organization if they, if they could, etc. So, by plotting this and looking at the case. You can identify whether and which quadrant and individuals and are there in psychologically safe, psychologically unsafe, psychologically toxic culture now, given that and given the case that you have, as you are looking for a better problem to solve, it actually informs you as to whether the opportunity is on the equity side or on the inclusion side to find that. answer. 

[00:47:03] Rita Burke: On SpeakUP! International, we seek to inform, educate, and inspire through the stories of people we consider to be community builders. And there's no question today that in speaking with Dr. Frank Douglas, that we are doing that. And so my next question to you is, what SAGE advice would you offer to a group of graduating medical students?

[00:47:33] Dr. Frank Douglas: The major, well, probably, but I think a major problem, for example, that, uh, the pandemic of COVID 19 has made us quite aware of is the issue of health care disparities. And I would say to any graduating student that that's the. The most important thing that they should be aware of and it is not only health care disparities, of course.

For underrepresented groups. But the truth of the matter is it's also, it occurs also in the predominantly white community, particularly if those individuals are poor, they too may be getting poor care. And so that's the one advice I would give them to be very conscious. And if they happen to be, uh, you know, as I was, uh, physician scientists, and they're doing particularly clinical trials.

To make sure that the demographics, the inclusion of all types of individuals who are affected by that disease are included in the trials so that we really understand how to treat those individuals. 

[00:48:56] Ellington Brown: You have in the upper my upper right hand corner a book Until You Walked in My Shoes. Can you give us a smidgen in terms of what that book is about. 

[00:49:12] Dr. Frank Douglas: Yes. Uh, actually, that book is a, is a new publication. It's the, it's the former book, which was, uh, uh, released earlier last year, which was addressing systemic discrimination by reframing the problem.

Uh, I was in a workshop with 17 other authors, and we were discussing each other's work. Uh, and, uh, Yeah. One of them made the observation, and the others agreed, and we had read each other's work, etc. And they said, you know, in your book, two, three pages in, you give this powerful example of inability of someone to walk in your shoes.

And your process of reframing is about getting people to walk in another person's shoes. So, instead of having this, what's somewhat of an academic title, why don't you title it Until You Walked in My Shoes and subtitle a reframing methodology to overcome systemic discrimination? So, it turns out if you change the title of a book, it becomes a new book, even though the content does not change.

You can change up to 10 percent of the content in a book if the title remains the same, it's just another version. It's the same book. But if you change the title, it's a new book. And I think it has to do with the, not so much the Library of Congress, but the, the, the, the way the library system, um, actually tracks, uh, books and categorizes them, um, catalogs them, I should say.

[00:50:56] Ellington Brown: Yes, they do have specific numbers for a book, and so if you do change the guts, it's still the same book, unless you actually change the title, change the title, you get a new number, and away you go, it is another, it is another book. I want to say thank you so much, good doctor, to allow us to. I have a conversation with you this afternoon.

We learned so much about you through your accomplishments and what equity and inclusion, what that means to you, and how you go about reframing equity. Thank you. Problems so that either you're able to go directly through them, or you're able to get around that situation and the importance of actually stop.

Wait, take a breath, think about what you're getting ready to do. So that you don't wind up in a situation where you make the wrong decision and then you regret it, because usually those things are undoable. You can't tell the clock that, oh, you know, can we back that up five minutes? And, you know, let me try that again.

It usually doesn't work that way. And you've more or less shown us, uh, given us many examples. And to drive home your point, and I think our audience is going to really attach themselves to those examples, which, by the way, they were excellent. So, thank you so much for stopping by and talking with us. It was a long process to get you.

We finally, you know, we finally was able to talk to you and please thank. Jacqueline for her wonderful, uh, mediary skills. She was very, very, uh, uh, helpful and you have a great afternoon. 

[00:53:10] Dr. Frank Douglas: Yes. And I'd like your readers to know, actually, we do have, uh, through the end of March and celebrating Black History Month.

Uh, 50 percent off on the online courses that are based on the book, uh, until you walk in my shoes. Uh, so if they go to the website, uh, they'll, we'll see a way to, uh, get access. 

[00:53:33] Ellington Brown: And what is the name of the, can you tell us what the website name is? 

[00:53:36] Dr. Frank Douglas: Yes, it is. Uh, www. safehavendialogues llc. com safehavendialogues llc.

com. LLC dot com. 

[00:53:53] Ellington Brown: All right. Well, thank you very much. And, uh, you have a great afternoon. Oh, and thank you so much, Rita, for what you've done this afternoon. Excellent, as always. Have a great afternoon, sir. Thank you. 

[00:54:11] Rita Burke: Thank you. Thank you. I like the metaphor of walking in the shoes because it's equivalent to empathy.

Yes, wonderful. 

[00:54:18] Dr. Frank Douglas: Yes, it is. 

[00:54:20] Ellington Brown: Thank you for listening to SpeakUP! International. If you wish to contact Dr. Frank Douglas, please submit your name, your email address, and the reason why you wish to contact Dr. Douglas to safehavendialogues - llc.com. 

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