Author: Dr. Eva Aagaard

Trauma – depending on your context, this word may evoke different connotations or have different implications. We want to recognize that the dual pandemic (systemic racism and COVID-19) coupled with escalating violence and national rhetoric laced with racism are tantamount to trauma for many in our community. While the challenges of the last year are […]

I am going to do something I rarely do—share a personal story. I am writing this while returning from vacation, my first in more than a year and the first real vacation my husband and I have taken alone in over 20 years. Unfortunately, while I was away, my grandmother passed away, likely from complications […]

Looking Ahead As an anchor institution and major economic driver in St Louis, Washington University School of Medicine is uniquely equipped to help heal some of the wounds of our nation that are currently on full display. Now is an opportunity to own the role our actions have played in leading to this moment and […]

“The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires.” — William Arthur Ward I came across this quote in contemplating my words for this month’s excerpt. It struck a chord on a number of levels but it especially resonates right now in this incredibly challenging moment we are facing […]

In all honesty, I am struggling. I am struggling as a leader to know what to say to you all right now as we enter what for many of us, including me, is one of the most challenging times of many of our lives. We are beaten down by the COVID-19 pandemic, racism, violence, natural […]

“Differences must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic.” ~ Audre Lorde In the month of July, some of us engaged in a discussion about polarities. Polarities are often thought of as opposites- things that cannot co-exist or that result in […]

Instability. This is what most, if not all of us, are feeling right now. COVID, financial challenges, furloughs, layoffs, re-openings and closings, unclear school schedules for our kids, unclear changes to our work environment and to our educational practices, and so much more. The ground under our feet is shaking, swaying and sometimes crumbling. I […]

The last few weeks and months we have experienced the atrocious killings of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, and Breonna Taylor compounding hundreds of years of oppression, racism and inequity. We have witnessed police brutality, and peaceful protests that have been turned to violence and destruction. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the […]