MSM's “Danforth Dialogues” features CommonSpirit Health CEO Wright Lassiter III
MSM President and CEO Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice and Mr. Lassiter discuss their More in Common Alliance partnership and the quest for health equity.
ATLANTA, GA – Aug. 20, 2024 – Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) has released the August edition of its 2024 "Danforth Dialogues" podcast, featuring a conversation between MSM President and CEO Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, and CommonSpirit Health System CEO Wright Lassiter.
Lassiter became CEO of CommonSpirit Health, one the country’s largest health care systems, in August 2022. Prior to joining CommonSpirit, Lassiter was CEO of Henry Ford Health, where he led that system through the COVID-19 pandemic and two successful mergers, significantly expanding its footprint and growing revenue.
“In December 2020, Morehouse School of Medicine and CommonSpirit Health entered into a 10-year, $100 million partnership called the More in Common Alliance (MiCA) to help reduce health disparities and increase medical and healthcare educational opportunities for minority populations,” said Dr. Montgomery Rice. “We were so pleased to have Wright Lassiter join Danforth Dialogues to discuss our partnership and our joint commitment to improving health equity in underserved communities.”
Noting that CommonSpirit is committed to “vulnerable populations and transformation,” Lassiter said the MiCA partnership has “tremendous potential to impact the communities CommonSpirit serves by increasing the pipeline for a more diverse healthcare workforce focused to meet the unique needs of many of its patients.”
“Hospitals are very important to communities, but hospitals in and of themselves don't make communities healthier,” Lassiter said. “The partnership is one significant manifestation for us to get out of the four walls of a hospital and actually have impact. That's different than just simply responding to what walks in the door. It allows us to change the fundamental characteristics of communities by creating tool sets of human beings that are equipped with skills to address the challenging, disturbing and unacceptable health inequities that exist in too many communities across the country.”
With more than 30 years as a healthcare executive, Lassiter, the son of prominent African American educator, Wright Lassiter Jr., spent his formative years in Tuskegee, Alabama, home to the renowned Historically Black College and University Tuskegee Institute. “Tuskegee was a hotbed of thought and leadership,” he said. “I got to experience things that I didn't really fully understand, but I got to see a lot of Black excellence. I didn't understand what that was or meant, but I saw people who had achieved a lot in education and in veterinary medicine, in science and research.”
A graduate of LeMoyne College in Dewitt, New York with a master’s degree in healthcare administration from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, Lassiter said one of the lifelong lessons of his early years was, “You have to be your best, but you also have to be better than people who don't look like you, because if you're not, you might not have opportunities come your way. You have to purposely focus on being better, and so I think that clearly laid a foundation around excellence in my life and around pursuing the best you could be.”
That determination to be the best is also inherent in Lassiter’s view of effective leadership, one of the core subjects of every Danforth Dialogues podcast. “Courage. I think that every effective leader has to be courageous,” he said. “No effective leader always gets it right and certainly doesn't cross the finish line every time. They take off from a starting line. And so, you have to be willing to fight for what you hope to accomplish and fight on behalf of the people that you're doing your work for.”
Launched in 2022, “Danforth Dialogues” focuses on the leadership lessons from the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic and their broader implication for society. Named after the historic Danforth Chapel on the Morehouse College campus, the podcast series features a cross-section of guests and topics.
To hear this edition of the podcast, click here.
For more information about the Danforth Dialogues leadership series, click here.
To listen and subscribe to the Danforth Dialogues podcast, click here.
For more information about Morehouse School of Medicine, please visit MSM.edu.
About Morehouse School of Medicine
Founded in 1975, Morehouse School of Medicine (MSM) is among the nation's leading educators of primary care physicians, biomedical scientists, and public health professionals. An independent and private historically-Black medical school, MSM was recognized by the Annals of Internal Medicine as the nation's number one medical school in fulfilling a social mission—the creation and advancement of health equity. Morehouse School of Medicine's faculty and alumni are noted for excellence in teaching, research, and public policy, as well as exceptional patient care. MSM is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools to award doctoral and master's degrees. To learn more about programs and donate today, please visit www.msm.edu or call 404-752-1500.
Contact
Jamille Bradfield
Morehouse School of Medicine
jbradfield@msm.edu