Dr. Horace DeLisser is the Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion at the Perelman School of Medicine. He also practices as a pulmonary and critical care specialist and researches endothelial cell biology. DeLisser is a faculty advisor for apenndx.
During high school, Dr. Horace DeLisser considered three different career paths: the ministry, medicine, and teaching. These paths attracted him because he felt called to help people, a mission driven largely by his faith. He chose to pursue medicine, but even as he gained a scientific focus, his interests in spirituality and education and his emphasis on connecting with patients became integral parts of his career.
DeLisser lived in both Jamaica and the United States throughout his childhood; he was born in Jamaica and moved to the United States when he was five, then ended up moving back to Jamaica, where he attended high school. DeLisser attended Temple University for his undergraduate degree and the University of Pennsylvania for medical school.
The first 10 to 15 years of DeLisser’s career were characterized by a scientific focus. During his fellowship, he trained in laboratory research, and now he runs a lab investigating endothelial cell biology. According to DeLisser, at the time of his tenure promotion as a physician-scientist, there was a huge scarcity of Black physician-scientists. “As an African American who is tenured in this track, it’s like rare as hen’s teeth. And in pulmonary medicine, [there were] literally just a handful of say Black, tenured physician scientists,” he said.
He hopes that by maintaining academic credibility as a Black physician-scientist, he can help to promote greater diversity in the field. “I just felt it was very important that there is somebody who is on my level, doing research, for whom someone who looks like me 20 years or 30 years younger can aspire to,” he said.
While DeLisser devoted time to endothelial cell biology research and promoting scientific diversity, he never lost sight of his focus on the physician-patient relationship. He felt that he thrived in relational communication, which led him on the path to getting involved in patient-doctor communication and cultural competency, among other areas. The spirituality that is inherent to patient encounters—in the sense that patients are “struggling with their identity, their purpose, [and] their meaning”—compelled him. Even if he does not have answers to their existential questions, he can sit with patients during their vulnerable moments. He believes that humanities and the arts cultivate skills that can help navigate those moments with patients.
Much of DeLisser’s work in the medical school has focused on medical humanities and doctor-patient communication. As he taught at the medical school, feedback from students reshaped his own understanding of structural and cultural competency. From 2012 to 2019, DeLisser was course director for Doctoring 1A, a class for first-year medical students that encourages students to reflect on social issues in medicine. The first year he directed Doctoring 1A, DeLisser received “very strong feedback” from students.
“I think I was able to absorb [the feedback] and listen, and then because of that, we were able to make the course better,” he said.
DeLisser juggles responsibilities in many realms: clinical, research, and educational. But medicine is not just a job to him.
“Medicine really has felt like a calling to me,” he said.
Claudia Heymach is an MS1 at the Perelman School of Medicine.
