Centennial Oral Histories:
Dr. Eugene Washington

Duke University’s Centennial Oral Histories Program includes one-hour videotaped interviews with former and current leaders of Duke University and Duke Health, during which they share memories of their time at Duke and their hopes for Duke’s future. The videos will be archived in Duke’s Archives as a permanent record and enduring legacy from Duke’s 100th anniversary. Subscribe to the podcast to watch or listen to the interviews as they are released.

Dr. Eugene Washington is Chancellor Emeritus for Health Affairs and former President and CEO of Duke University Health System. In this interview with Reverend Dr. Luke Powery, Dr. Washington talks about his tenure leading Duke Health and his enduring commitment to helping people and improving health.

Eugene Washington, MD, MPH, MSc

  • Chancellor for Health Affairs and President and CEO, Duke University Health System (2015-2023)

Interviewed by

Reverend Dr. Luke A. Powery 

  • Dean of Duke University Chapel 
  • Professor of Homiletics and African and African American Studies  

August 29, 2024 · 2:00 p.m.
President’s Lounge, Forlines Building, Duke University

00:00:00:18 – 00:00:26:08

Intro Narration

Welcome to Centennial Oral histories, a series featuring former and current leaders of Duke University and Duke Health sharing memories of their time at Duke and their hopes for Duke’s future. Enjoy this discussion with Doctor Eugene Washington, who served as Chancellor for Health Affairs and president and CEO of Duke University Health System. He is interviewed by the Reverend Doctor Luke Parry, Dean of Duke Chapel.

00:00:26:10 – 00:00:59:05

Luke Powery

Good afternoon. I’m Luke Palfrey, and I’m here with doctor Gene Washington for the Duke Centennial Oral histories program. Gene, it’s it’s great to be with you, this afternoon and to hear some of your story, with Duke and all of the many intersections and and the the impact you have had, here at Duke. Well, and we can talk about it is just.

00:00:59:05 – 00:01:06:15

Eugene Washington

Terrific for me to be here with you. And I just feel honored to be a part of the program. And Duke’s rich history.

00:01:06:19 – 00:01:37:10

Luke Powery

Wonderful, wonderful. There’s several things we can talk about for sure. But I think it would be helpful just to begin to share a little bit about your your kind of career journey. Yeah. And to reflect a little bit on how did you find your way to Duke. But or you could frame it another way, because you are a preacher’s kid, like I am, and reframe that to say what led you to Duke?

00:01:37:10 – 00:01:40:09

Luke Powery

What? How did you find your way here? Yeah.

00:01:40:11 – 00:02:13:11

Eugene Washington

Luke, my professional journey, dates back to my childhood. Where, I grew up in Houston. But, as you know, I grew up in a segregated Houston. The son of a of a minister. I also grew up in a community that fully embraced the WB’s The voices. Talented 10th philosophy and principle for, which meant I grew up with some extra attention on me.

00:02:13:13 – 00:02:45:06

Eugene Washington

Focused on the idea that I would excel, work hard, and achieve, but all with the aim of elevating myself so that I could in turn elevate. We called it the Negro race, but elevate African-American black people. And over the course of my life, my principal drivers have been, achievement or excellence. But also, how do you leverage that to have, impact?

00:02:45:08 – 00:03:21:14

Eugene Washington

Leaving Houston, I love with this idea that I was going to, eventually become a physician and be an ambassador. For the black community in terms of serving the black community. Eventually finished medical school. But in medical school, I discovered that, there was a better way for me to possibly have impact in the black community than just treating individual patients.

00:03:21:16 – 00:03:55:16

Eugene Washington

And so I broaden my lens to that of a public health lens, which was more concerned with the idea that it was not about me, but it was about lifting. Again, originally it was the African-American community, but that land broadened as well across my career. And with that in mind, I eventually went to public health school while I was in medical school, and for the ten years out of medical school, I had a career in public health.

00:03:55:18 – 00:04:27:18

Eugene Washington

I worked at the centers for Disease Control as an epidemiologist and as a, clinical investigator. So I kind of think of that is phase one of this professional career journey. Phase two involved me going back to retrain in clinical medicine, and there’s a whole story around that. But it was really prompted by the recognition that public health had a macro view of things.

00:04:27:20 – 00:04:58:08

Eugene Washington

But I also wanted to combine that with a micro view in terms of taking care of patients, so that I could bridge these two worlds. So I went back, completed a residency, as an old man, in gynecology and obstetrics. And that became the beginning of the second phase of my career, which had to do with, more clinical research, but also a focus on patient care.

00:04:58:10 – 00:05:31:21

Eugene Washington

In my case, it was particularly women’s care and reproductive health. Somewhere along the way, in that journey, someone observed that I had some facility, a skill with bringing people together, organizing them around a common mission and driving, helping to drive the group through to, completion, of what the goals were. And and with that, I then assume several different, leadership and management.

00:05:31:23 – 00:06:05:06

Eugene Washington

Roles as the department chair. But then eventually, I mean, I was a dean. It was also executive vice president or provost executive vice chair in this case at a university, which really ushered in the third part of my, career and journey, which I’ve been on now for the last, I would say almost two decades. And that is, executive and senior leadership roles in large academic, health systems.

00:06:05:08 – 00:06:32:14

Eugene Washington

And if I come full circle, that has allowed me platforms at various levels, to help people to have, drive excellence, but importantly, to have, impact. And what eventually brought me to do was an opportunity for me to leverage what I had been doing in research world, what I’ve been doing in the clinical world.

00:06:32:16 – 00:07:05:13

Eugene Washington

And what I was beginning to do in the community and public health world as a combined entity. But at Duke, the role, the center for Health Affairs, allowed me to, work with a team of leaders who could oversee each of those without me having the day to day responsibility for it, but could guide. In this case, Duke health, in the broader engagement of all of our mission and mission areas with the community.

00:07:05:13 – 00:07:15:05

Eugene Washington

And the community in this case, particularly meant Durham and the local community, but it also meant, communities globally.

00:07:15:07 – 00:07:19:05

Luke Powery

Well, if you have quite a journey.

00:07:19:06 – 00:07:21:14

Eugene Washington

I’d like to believe that I’m still on it, though.

00:07:21:18 – 00:07:36:08

Luke Powery

Yeah. You are. Yeah. What? When you came in 2015, I believe, what were your initial goals? As chancellor? Yeah.

00:07:36:10 – 00:08:17:14

Eugene Washington

At the highest level, really was to work with just, phenomenal. Really, group of colleagues who had already excelled. I mean, I’m, I’m saying group of colleagues. I’m talking about faculty, but I’m also talking about staff, and I’m talking about trainees. To establish Duke. And in this case, we were Duke medicine at the time. You know, in, in that top group of, of of of institutions that were, achieving at the highest level in research, but in education also and in patient care.

00:08:17:16 – 00:08:44:04

Eugene Washington

Building on top of that, a priority for me and I would say the larger goal for me was to intensify our efforts on health. So much of what we were doing was focus on AI, individual missions, and we were great at taking care of patients and great at discovery and driving innovation. And we were certainly great in educating students and residents and other trainees.

00:08:44:06 – 00:09:20:19

Eugene Washington

But we didn’t see those as a means to an end. In many cases, those were the end. And, I didn’t envision that we would intensify our attention on the concept of health and see those as a means to an end. And in focusing on health, it would prompt us to think a little differently about how we saw research, about how we saw patient care and about how we, trained our, our students and our other trainees.

00:09:20:21 – 00:09:48:14

Eugene Washington

And the big difference being it prompted us to think about those social and economic determinants of health that go beyond the traditional ones that we had thought about for so many years in medicine. And so that became really a principal driver for me and for the organization in my early years. And that is one of the reasons I was attracted to Duke.

00:09:48:15 – 00:10:20:13

Luke Powery

Yeah. Wonderful. Yeah. I was here for that shift. Yeah, I remember that that shift, in speaking about this kind of broadening on so many levels. So what, what you’ve done here, and you’ve gestured towards it just now beyond the medical care into areas of population health improvement. Could you name some of the most impactful moments in this journey, that change which you’ve mentioned?

00:10:20:13 – 00:10:37:17

Luke Powery

Duke medicine, the Duke Health, the founding of the Population Health Management Office, launching Healthy Duke. I was connected to that, I remember. Yeah. Were there particular moments in these transitions that stand out to you?

00:10:37:18 – 00:11:15:17

Eugene Washington

Yeah, yeah. One that comes to mind is, as a result of, I would say, a 6 to 8 month effort, working with leaders across, the medical school, School of Nursing, health system, but also the university. We, we without any coaching for mean even though, we were on this journey together by then, we transitioned from Duke medicine to Duke health, where, you know, we described our mission as advancing health together, that that was a critical moment.

00:11:15:19 – 00:11:45:21

Eugene Washington

And January of 2016. It was like a manifesto. We announced that this was more than just symbolic. It meant that we were going to place this additional emphasis. But we quickly turned to, how do we translate this into, real programs and activities? And we thought about it in terms of populations. And there was three overlapping populations.

00:11:45:23 – 00:12:19:11

Eugene Washington

One population was the population of people in our community. So that’s right here. Duke, another population, was and is, the population of patients who come in and out. But we talked about millions of individuals over a given, year, our health system and in the third population was a community that we serve. And so working with some really talented but also dedicated individuals in each one of those areas, we say we need to give a little structure to it.

00:12:19:13 – 00:13:01:06

Eugene Washington

So healthy Duke was about how do we make it Duke University community. It’s our faculty and our students and our staff and everyone. And had a great partner there. Always had really remarkable partners in each of these major endeavors. When we thought about, our patients that led to the creation of the Office of Population Health Management, which was designed to get away from the clinical in, enterprise itself and work more out in homes and in the communities.

00:13:01:06 – 00:13:29:05

Eugene Washington

And what we could go upstream and really see how people lived in their homes and better assess what their needs were beyond just the medicines that we were giving them. And then, similarly, as we thought about the population in the community, we developed something or an entity or an effort called, Healthy Durham back to became Healthy Durham 2020.

00:13:29:07 – 00:13:52:00

Eugene Washington

And and we tell the story that, you know, when we started healthy, doing 2020 was all the things we were going to do by 2020. Where we had been moving a lot slower than we thought. So by the time we got to 2020, someone came with a genius idea that 2020 stood for. We had 2020 clarity of vision now about what we wanted to achieve.

00:13:52:01 – 00:14:06:20

Eugene Washington

So it remained, healthy Durham for 2020 and for, for a long time. But it encapsulated, what we wanted to do in the community and became the foundation for efforts that are still underway and thriving right now.

00:14:06:22 – 00:14:32:17

Luke Powery

Jean, you have said quite a bit already about the community, and that broadening of Duke Health into the community and even Holmes, could you say something about Duke’s relationship with the Durham community through the lens of health care and health equity? Say some more about that.

00:14:32:19 – 00:15:06:17

Eugene Washington

Sure. Well, it it begins with, the fact that we are what we call an anchor institution of talking about Duke University and, Duke Medical Center helped us in this case, Duke Health. And from a health care perspective, we, provide care to 85 plus percent of the population here in Duke. It’s a responsibility that we take quite seriously.

00:15:06:19 – 00:15:38:16

Eugene Washington

And, the good news is, is that from the community’s perspective, they not just depend on it. They expect that we are going to take care of them and help them to not just only be healthy, but to thrive. We are the largest private employer. And so, there is, from both sides, a sense of expectation.

00:15:38:18 – 00:16:12:06

Eugene Washington

And over the course of years, we have been better aligned in where we thought we were, relative to delivering on, the expected, outcomes. I was quite fortunate in that when I arrived, the relationships, with the community were quite good because I, I see that they are right now. And I benefited from having a champion who was a bridge for me.

00:16:12:07 – 00:16:43:01

Eugene Washington

MaryAnn Black. I was just admired and respected in the community, so I. I arrived with some credibility. Just in walking the grounds with her. But but to your question. When I think about our mission again, I go back to our mission. It’s the educate the future generations is to drive discovery. And innovation is to improve health care and deliver the best health care.

00:16:43:03 – 00:17:17:22

Eugene Washington

But it adds up to me to, improving the health. And we can’t do that without working, in sync with the community. They understand the needs much better than we do. They’re more knowledgeable in so many areas than we are. And it is that collaboration that has allowed us to not just achieve our academic missions, but, to have the impact and deliver on the expectations that are there.

00:17:18:00 – 00:17:48:22

Eugene Washington

So I’m proud that I’ve just seen our institutions. I’m at Duke Health, but the broader university, obviously, we’re a part of that. Increase and intensify its efforts, with, not just our Durham community, but certainly the communities across, the greater Triangle in North Carolina. But we’ve seen the same with our emphasis on global health in the communities that we’re serving, around the world.

00:17:49:00 – 00:18:16:21

Luke Powery

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you for that. Beyond or let’s say interconnected to Duke Health. Which is in a broader sense science. You know, if we think in that way there’s been this wonderful the partnership and kind of propelling in partnership with the then provost, Sally Kornbluth, who was provost at the time to launch the Duke Science and Technology.

00:18:16:23 – 00:18:28:11

Luke Powery

Initiative. Could you describe what that is and how that effort will strengthen? Yeah. Duke’s. Yeah. Capacity. Yeah. In the future and in service?

00:18:28:12 – 00:19:04:14

Eugene Washington

Sure. Well, you you you mentioned, Provost Colonel Sally, and, we we would definitely interpret in simpatico. She was like a copilot. I was the other copilot. If anything, she was the pilot, and that was the copilot. But we both, recognized that while we were doing very well, in our scientific community, we were in a group that, had picked up the pace.

00:19:04:16 – 00:19:35:11

Eugene Washington

You know, I’m a cyclist. And so it’s like you’re riding in that front group, and they had a saddle. And you don’t get out of the saddle and pick up the pace, you get dropped, and it’s really hard to catch up. And that’s as a result of some recruitments that we had lost. Some retention efforts and also some metrics that were suggesting to us that we were still in the top group, but just not moving at the same pace.

00:19:35:13 – 00:20:08:03

Eugene Washington

And fortunately, with support from, the president, and eventually the trustees, we determined that, we wanted to make the necessary investments principally in people from the beginning, but also in programs and eventually in facilities. Look, why don’t we want to make. It wasn’t just about beginning to pack and being the ranking. Again, I go back, to, having impact.

00:20:08:05 – 00:20:36:17

Eugene Washington

There are some two huge problems that society face right now. And underneath them, are just questions that need to be addressed in order to drive solutions to those problems. And that’s what science comes in across the spectrum, from discovery science all the way up to translational side to population sides. And the principal ingredient of successful science is people.

00:20:36:19 – 00:21:10:22

Eugene Washington

And so this initiative has been very, very much about investing in, and science and scientists at Duke already here, but also and, deepening our resolve to be competitive in recruiting the best of the best, in the scientific world. But beyond the people. This initiative also allows us to reorganize efforts in certain areas to give more focus with the idea of drive more impact.

00:21:11:00 – 00:21:36:17

Eugene Washington

Computing is one of those areas right now. We expected to change, just given what’s happening right now and the advances that are being made in that area. Another is material science, which many don’t recognize, the degree to which how it affects our lives in so many ways, including in terms of how we deliver health care and and materials and instruments that we use in health care.

00:21:36:19 – 00:22:24:16

Eugene Washington

And a third one, again, emphasize these are just areas that are at the beginning, but their awareness around resilience, and we think of it as body and brain, resilience. And what that is allowed us to do, or the university and colleagues here in, in focus in those areas is to really elevate, our performance in terms of the synergies of the science that’s underway in those areas so that we could accelerate discovery and accelerate innovations that accelerate, solutions and adoption of those solutions to eventually have the impact that we want to have in some key areas.

00:22:24:18 – 00:22:35:03

Eugene Washington

So it’s an important, endeavor that’s in many ways still in its infancy, but it’s been supported, and we’re beginning to see the payoffs.

00:22:35:05 – 00:23:10:06

Luke Powery

Most definitely. Okay. That’s great. You have, talked about 2020. You said you’re the 2020 people. Yeah. Several times. And then you just used the word resilience. Yeah. And I can’t help but think about, the Covid 19 pandemic. When I think about those that that combination. How did Duke Health help the university community, the Durham community, successfully navigate that pandemic?

00:23:10:09 – 00:23:16:00

Luke Powery

And what are the lessons from that period that you think are most important?

00:23:16:02 – 00:23:44:12

Eugene Washington

Yeah. If you don’t mind, can I start with the last one? Oh, sure. Because a key lesson here, and it’s, we say, but we lived it. We’re stronger together. And it was a reinforcement of that. Because of the way we responded. And I’m talking about Duke University with Norwich here now and Duke Health’s a part of that.

00:23:44:14 – 00:24:07:20

Eugene Washington

But the way we came together first around just figuring out what was going on and how best we could take care of our people and our people, in this case, again, met those three populations that we talked about. So it’s almost citizens on on campus. It’s our patients and their families, but it’s also our our our, our community.

00:24:07:22 – 00:24:42:16

Eugene Washington

And it again, underscored the strength that we have and the power that we have when we draw on the disciplines all across. Do. I mean, I know across all the school professional schools, along with the including the college, where we engage our students. And so that would definitely be and that was needed. It was out of necessity, early on, some of the specific ways that Duke helped contributed to the effort to more brought on in versus one.

00:24:42:18 – 00:25:10:22

Eugene Washington

We forget often that there was a shortage of tests that were available. And so you, you didn’t have results in terms of who was positive, who was negative. You didn’t have a reliable surveillance system. If you are what you are responsible for the students about, whether you continue to go with classes or how you manage them, or will you send everyone home?

00:25:11:00 – 00:25:45:03

Eugene Washington

And, Duke Health, as well as some scientists or laboratory based, researchers, came together and came up with some preliminary testing just to help guide those kind of decisions. So from a scientific point of view, we contributed in that manner. The other was it was, quite, confidence building to know that you got this medical center so that when someone tested positive for someone was.

00:25:45:05 – 00:26:14:10

Eugene Washington

You know, you weren’t sending them off to, an unknown entity. We had protocols in place to ensure that students, in particular students. But also faculty and other members were treated very promptly. You know, we were part of building out a, a quarantine network. And so we contributed, in that manner to, in terms of taking care of individuals.

00:26:14:12 – 00:26:20:12

Eugene Washington

But importantly, in terms of focusing on how we prevent the infection.

00:26:20:13 – 00:26:46:06

Luke Powery

Yeah. It was quite an experience. And I remember on some of the calls that would happen, you know the leadership senior leadership group at times you were reminding those of us on the university side that we’ve never gone home, you know, like that you could forget. Yeah. There is no remote. When you’re talking about the health care system and the care for people, right.

00:26:46:07 – 00:27:19:15

Luke Powery

During this time. And, I remember you saying that, that having that refrain at, at the right moment, to help us all. Now, I realize that that particular the pandemic season, Covid 19, was really a, you know, a challenging time. Yeah, right. For everyone. In so many ways. And maybe they were there were difficult decisions or challenges, you know, then.

00:27:19:17 – 00:27:40:22

Luke Powery

But could you think about your time as chancellor? Were there other challenges, that you faced as chancellor, that or difficult decisions that you had to make? More issues to deal with? Yeah. During your season, don’t. We’ll get to the challenges. We’re going to get to the joys, too. Don’t worry. Yeah.

00:27:41:00 – 00:27:52:05

Eugene Washington

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, if you go, we go back to we time about people. Yeah. The most difficult decisions you make. Yeah. And these leadership roles, they’re they’re connected to people.

00:27:52:09 – 00:27:52:20

Luke Powery

00:27:54:08 – 00:28:30:00

Eugene Washington

But beyond people, the difficult decisions you make around resources. So let’s say Covid, when it comes to people, you know, Covid led to a shutdown, which, which meant we weren’t operating on patients. Right? Right. We weren’t seeing as many people in clinic. We went to, to help. I mean, fast forwarded very quickly from 2 or 300 people and a month until help, you know, to, to 3000 a week.

00:28:30:02 – 00:29:03:02

Eugene Washington

It was phenomenal. Just that sheer. But it meant people weren’t coming into our clinics. It also meant that our staff weren’t, coming to work as often. Which also meant, in turn, that, our revenues did just plummeting. So one of the toughest decision was, how do we manage through this period with decreasing resources?

00:29:03:04 – 00:29:27:13

Eugene Washington

But yet we’ve had people we want to take care of and take care. I’m proud to say that, you know, with strong support from the executive team and from others across the institution. We did not lay off anyone during the pandemic. In contrast, to many if not most of our peers, including locally, they had reductions in force.

00:29:27:15 – 00:29:46:12

Eugene Washington

That was a tough decision, but we felt it was in line with our value, of taking care of, of our people and our communities. And so that would be an example of one related, to, to people, but also related to resource use.

00:29:46:13 – 00:30:10:07

Luke Powery

Yeah. Yeah. You know, most definitely. What what would you say in thinking about. Well, let’s just go to the joys. We’ll get to some other. Let’s do that. What what would you say were some of your greatest joys here? Yeah. As Chancellor and and, you know, being at Duke.

00:30:10:07 – 00:30:18:05

Eugene Washington

Yeah. Yeah. You mean besides Cameron and basketball and do trail? Yeah. I’m a big.

00:30:18:05 – 00:30:20:00

Luke Powery

Like, God. And then there’s cam.

00:30:20:00 – 00:30:46:03

Eugene Washington

Yeah, yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah. It’s, they they relate to seeing people be successful. And, you know, I’ve talked a lot about, you know, leadership and executive team, but, they’re examples of just staff.

00:30:46:05 – 00:30:47:01

Luke Powery

00:30:48:15 – 00:31:27:10

Eugene Washington

An example here was a group of staff along with some support, with, with faculty, put together film called housekeepers. And it is, it was just so moving to see how that community of individuals who take care of, you know, kind of invisible people, you know, taking care of the institutions, taking care of us, taking care of patients, taking care of the food supply, come to the fore and tell their stories.

00:31:27:12 – 00:31:59:02

Eugene Washington

And with the support of just a couple of the executives, that brought joy, to know that we had a community of these individuals like this here, but that we had, the, the community spirit to celebrate it and bring it to the fore. So, you know, stories that involve, those not in the limelight all the time.

00:31:59:04 – 00:32:26:22

Eugene Washington

Being successful certainly brought me joy. I can think of examples of students who organized themselves. I, one of the programs that we had as part of our population to help the community efforts was we supported something called Chancellor’s Community Fellowships. And a couple of times a year I would go to them and they would present where they are in terms of their projects.

00:32:27:00 – 00:32:54:09

Eugene Washington

And there was one project where they provide food, every Saturday morning, out in the community. And I encouraged them to invite me, you know, and they did and so on of in this case, it was a Saturday morning. We gathered and, it was just, joyful to see not only the students who were there, but the community leaders.

00:32:54:11 – 00:33:21:23

Eugene Washington

And the farming community who were bringing in produce and bringing in other things that were being backed. To deliver to patients and deliver other individuals in the community. But there were also individuals who knew to come to this distribution center. And as part of that experience, I rode with two students on a deliverable.

00:33:22:01 – 00:33:43:20

Eugene Washington

I, it just brought, great joy to know. Again, these are students, right, Duke, who are living the mission and to see the way that that crossed over into our community and was having impact as I visited a household.

00:33:43:22 – 00:33:44:17

Luke Powery

00:33:44:23 – 00:34:03:04

Eugene Washington

And so the joy on their faces and receiving these, these gifts of nourishment. So particularly I think about examples of individuals that are, you know, kind of laboring in the fields away from the spotlight but yet truly living our mission.

00:34:03:07 – 00:34:34:04

Luke Powery

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s powerful. Thank you for that. I did not know about the housekeepers. Let’s go. Salem. I definitely want to, because they are keepers of the house. They’re keepers of the house, for sure. One of the things which I know was a maybe a joy and a challenge. One of your final achievements, if one might say, as chancellor, was the creation of the Duke Health Integrated Practice.

00:34:34:06 – 00:34:46:10

Luke Powery

Why was the integration of Duke’s physician practice, the health system and the School of Medicine so important for Duke its future and importantly for patients?

00:34:46:11 – 00:35:16:15

Eugene Washington

Yeah. Again let’s start with the patients. Delivering high quality health care starts with being able to see the doctor or being able to see somewhere in the system, the nurse practitioner, whomever that physical therapist. And without this integration we were always left with access problem. The waits to get in to see us were long.

00:35:16:17 – 00:35:44:01

Eugene Washington

So that’s one access. And I explain why. The other thing is patient. I want my care to be seamless, and. Which means I want it to be integrated. Oh, okay. And our physicians, best in the nation, but still not as integrated. And so the care was not seamless when it came to delivering it across the health care system.

00:35:44:03 – 00:35:47:12

Eugene Washington

This integration was going to a has.

00:35:47:16 – 00:35:48:11

Luke Powery

Right away.

00:35:48:13 – 00:36:17:06

Eugene Washington

Brought us. So we aligned in mission. And it was critically important to improve the patient care because those access problems were there. Principally because a physician organization by itself could not grow. It did just didn’t have the capital and the laws didn’t allow us to support it in its growth as a separate entity with the integration.

00:36:17:08 – 00:36:53:13

Eugene Washington

We were able to accelerate recruitment, in fact, just this past academic year, recruited 390 physicians just made it grow. This was an increase of, almost 20% over our our base. But it meant that, access problems and waits and the time to get in to see different specialties just is plummeting. And so the integration was critical for us to provide the highest quality care that we had been provide.

00:36:53:15 – 00:37:23:20

Eugene Washington

But there was another reason you mentioned this about the future. Our competitors again going back to just looking at the landscape. They were expanding and that expansion particularly through partnerships was dependent on integrated systems. And so for us to attain the scope and the size and be competitive and to forge those partnerships that we, we’re going to need long term.

00:37:23:20 – 00:37:41:15

Eugene Washington

And that’s happening right now. This integration needed to take place. And I’m delighted to say that the reports I get now is that we are you know, we’re moving forward and upward when we’re headed beyond.

00:37:41:17 – 00:37:48:03

Luke Powery

Yes. Great. Wonderful. I know that was a big accomplishment and.

00:37:48:06 – 00:37:51:18

Eugene Washington

Yeah. And it today I can say I feel joy for talking about it.

00:37:51:20 – 00:37:53:10

Luke Powery

Yes.

00:37:53:12 – 00:37:56:04

Eugene Washington

There’s a different story.

00:37:56:06 – 00:38:09:16

Luke Powery

I understand. Well, here you are. So no longer the chancellor. Yeah. But not retired. You’ve put on new tires?

00:38:09:18 – 00:38:11:16

Eugene Washington

Yeah. I’ve been in a period of renewal.

00:38:11:16 – 00:38:43:00

Luke Powery

Renewal? Yeah. Right. You love that word? Yes. Right. Renewal. And can you share a little bit about your current research efforts? Yeah. That are related to climate and and health. I think this is so it critical that at the someone who was in such a role and and just you write your journey that you laid out for us and at this stage.

00:38:43:02 – 00:38:55:16

Luke Powery

Still doing research, still new projects emerging and relevant for our time. Yeah. Could you speak a little bit about what you’re working on and in your research.

00:38:55:17 – 00:39:27:21

Eugene Washington

Yeah. Yeah. I, I will acknowledge when it comes to, climate and climate change. I’m, I’m sort of a Johnny come lately? Yeah. I didn’t have a deep awareness of it. And was that motivated to take action? But when I became aware of it a couple of years ago, as a result of being asked to participate and, discussion, through the national science, about what the healthcare sector might do.

00:39:27:23 – 00:39:57:07

Eugene Washington

You know, I walked away. Aware of the problem. And as a colleague say, once you become aware, you can’t undo that. And so as I was transitioning to this period of renewal, I thought about what are some of the big problems right now. And it just happens that this is about the time that, Duke is making its commitment right to climate and launching a major, major effort.

00:39:57:09 – 00:40:30:13

Eugene Washington

And I, you know, wrapped up this thinking by connecting it to, a where I started with big populations and public health problems. And if there ever was a public health crisis. Actually, climate change is both a public health and humanitarian crisis. And so, I had the benefit of a sabbatical which allowed me to, do some not just deep thinking but collaborate with some others on, on coming up with some projects.

00:40:30:13 – 00:41:17:11

Eugene Washington

And so at this point I’m engaged in climate change and human health, all with the aim toward how do we, identify and how do we evaluate and, study solutions, that accelerate, action, that promotes, human health. And, right now, a projects and and three areas, one is when we look at climate, and carbon emissions, the health care sector in the U.S., about 8.5% come from, the health care system.

00:41:17:13 – 00:41:42:00

Eugene Washington

These big health systems and the largest of the health care system, particularly in terms of carbon footprint, they happen to be the academic health systems because we have intensive research enterprises, but also because we, take care of more serious ill people. And so we, we, we just have more waste that we have to dispose. We, we use more energy.

00:41:42:02 – 00:42:21:16

Eugene Washington

But yet we just like I was not as a way out. We as a community of academic health systems and leaders have not been as aware. So I have had to spearhead an effort that is accelerating, action by the C-suite in academic health systems. And in partnership with a couple of national organizations, have formed the equivalent of a coalition to drive, this activity, which is aimed at, as we say, educating, activating and arming, CEOs to take action.

00:42:21:18 – 00:42:56:04

Eugene Washington

Another area, given my discipline is in, reproductive health. And, again, with support from across Duke, but particularly in the department that I’m in. We’ve launched a new effort. It’s, the Climate Action Collaborative to promote, reproductive health. We see the problems globally as it relates to, infertility or fertility, but also in particular as it relates to maternal health and pregnancy outcomes.

00:42:56:06 – 00:43:27:17

Eugene Washington

But we see it immediately right here in Durham and we see it in North Carolina. The degree to which heat and pollutions, or leading to adverse pregnancy outcomes, both for the mother in terms of regrettably greater morbidity and mortality and for the efforts in terms of premature deliveries and low birth weight. And guess what? There is just widespread inequity.

00:43:27:19 – 00:44:01:22

Eugene Washington

These consequences are disproportionately hitting the most vulnerable populations, widening an already alarming and disquieting disparity that’s there. And then, the, the third area relates to, what we are doing to what we call building observatories for climate action. In order to, intervene, in places literally around the world. This started off as a global project.

00:44:02:00 – 00:44:36:11

Eugene Washington

Working particularly with colleagues in a global help, institute. They took me with them to Amazon, about three months ago so you could see what’s happening. Ground zero. But there is observatories. We can determine what are some targeted areas for interventions. And not just in Amazon, but using Duke’s footprint or platform in eastern Africa, which is where another major rainforest is in the Congo.

00:44:36:13 – 00:45:16:06

Eugene Washington

We are launching similar kind of programs there and using our platform in Singapore, which is adjacent to the other major rainforest, which is, and Indonesia area. We, launching major programs there, all with an idea to how we are working again with local communities and governments and officials, how we can build these observed trees to more quickly and more clearly define what the problems or identify solutions, test them and then launch, interventions.

00:45:16:08 – 00:45:18:02

Eugene Washington

Wow, I’m having fun.

00:45:18:04 – 00:45:47:03

Luke Powery

I see you are being renewed ahead of the engage. So I love it. You know, this is the centennial, obviously, for the university. Significant time of celebration and reflection. What would be your hopes for Duke Health? In particular, but the broader university, for the next 100 years. Yeah.

00:45:47:06 – 00:46:23:17

Eugene Washington

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it would be the same. It would be for next year, for the next ten years, for the next hundred years. Then we’d be the best at making individuals better. Whether it was the students or whether it’s staff, whether it’s other trainees or whether it’s faculty. And by better. Better than who they are now.

00:46:23:19 – 00:47:16:15

Eugene Washington

So we helping them with their growth. But we’re supporting them in their endeavors. And it’s better. In how they live their lives and it’s better and what they contribute as, citizens. And it’s better in how they help create, the future. And so this concept of making individuals better in turn, makes our communities better. And in turn, first, it makes our institutions better, including do, but it makes our communities better and in turn makes the world, a better place for.

00:47:16:17 – 00:47:57:14

Luke Powery

Well you, you emphasized even there about making people better all throughout that you’re sharing today people has been a, a theme, a thread which came through so clearly you have been, a remarkable leader here. A doctor researcher, teacher. But most of all, you have been a phenomenal person. And so thank you for all that you’ve done for Duke and so many other institutions, paving the way for the next generations.

00:47:57:16 – 00:48:01:22

Luke Powery

And thank you for sharing and spending this time with me this afternoon.

00:48:02:03 – 00:48:03:09

Eugene Washington

Well, thank you, Luke.