Dr. Brian Nwannunu, an adult-reconstruction fellow in orthopedics at Baylor College of Medicine, specializes more than just in the musculoskeletal system; he’s working to diversify the orthopedic surgery industry. The American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons reported that as of 2018, 84.7 percent of orthopedic surgeons identify as white, 6.7 percent identify as Asian, and 2.2 percent identify as Hispanic or Latino. This lack of diversity intensifies since only 1.9 percent of orthopedic surgeons identify as Black, and less than one percent are Native American. There isn’t just a lack of diversity in the orthopedic industry; there’s a lack of acceptance that Black people can work in this medical field. “A few of my rotations, the general culture, and the underlying message was, ‘We don’t want anyone that doesn’t look like us,'” Nwannunu, who is a first-generation Nigerian American, told the Houston Chronicle in an interview . “They don’t feel like they can relate to you. They would...

As artificial intelligence becomes more advanced, people are beginning to look into its medical possibilities. Recently, a team from MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) announced the development of AI to predict breast cancer. The AI model can help detect breast cancer up to five years in advance, Engadget reported . That alone is significant, but the researchers also claimed that their method helps eliminate racial disparities. “Rather than taking a one-size fits all approach, we can personalize screening around a woman’s risk of developing cancer. For example, a doctor might recommend supplemental MRI screening for women with high model-assessed risk,” MIT professor Regina Barzilay, a breast cancer survivor and senior author of the team’s paper in Radiology said. Researchers trained the AI model by showing it mammograms and known outcomes from over 60,000 patients treated at MGH. By doing so, the AI was...