Students, faculty and staff gathered in the Sullivan Classroom in the Larner Medical Education Center on December 7 for the 2016 Vito Imbasciani, Ph.D., M.D.’85 and George DiSalvo LGBTQ Health Equity Lecture. Guest speaker Harvey J. Makadon, M.D., director of education and training programs at The Fenway Institute and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, presented on achieving equity in health care for LGBT patients.

Makadon, who is is the lead editor of The Fenway Guide to Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Health, published by the American College of Physicians (second edition published in 2015), teaches methods for improving access to quality care for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people in health care settings around the country. He directs the National LGBT Health Education Center, a Health Resources and Services Administration-funded cooperative agreement to improve the health care of LGBT people in community health centers, and the National Center for Innovation in HIV Care – also funded by HRSA – to help improve organizational sustainability and service models to better address the continuum of care for administrative services organizations (ASOs) and community-based organizations (CBOs) nationally. In addition to writing numerous articles and chapters related to LGBT health, he served on the Advisory Committee to the Institute of Medicine of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in the preparation of The Health of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender People: Building a Foundation for Better Understanding report published in March 2011.

In 2014, Larner College of Medicine alumnus Vito Imbasciani, Ph.D., M.D.’85, and his spouse, George DiSalvo, made a generous gift to the College to establish the Imbasciani-DiSalvo Lectureship Endowed Fund. The Lectureship aims to ensure the preparation of culturally-competent physicians who can provide medical care and prevention services that are specific to LGBTQ populations. Imbasciani, a urologic surgeon, was recently appointed secretary of the California Department of Veteran Affairs by California Governor Jerry Brown. He is also president-elect of the Los Angeles County Medical Association and since 1997, has worked at the Southern California Permanente Medical Group, the past ten years of which he has been their director of governmental relations.

Visit the Larner College of Medicine Office of Diversity and Inclusion website.