Dr. James E.K. Hildreth has been president of Meharry Medical College, the nation’s oldest and largest historically Black academic health science center in Nashville, Tennessee, since July 2015, but for more than 40 years, the infectious disease expert has investigated viruses.
“The first virus I studied as a graduate student was flu, so, I know a lot about influenza,” says Hildreth whose work on “another pandemic virus, HIV,” has spanned a career.
Now, as SARS-CoV-2, the specific coronavirus strain that causes COVID-19, fuels a new pandemic, Hildreth, the characteristically low-key scientist and CEO, has become a leader in the rapidly evolving response to the outbreak.
On Nashville’s new COVID-19 Task Force, Hildreth delivers frank media messages and public conversations about the science of the virus and its transmission. He also works with city and health officials to gauge how the novel coronavirus is impacting Nashville. As cases climb, he’s helping his city to prepare for its punch.
But Hildreth says the familiar roles he and others in the Meharry community have played, over the years, as watchmen, advocates and caretakers for the health of African Americans in the city and across the nation, have become more urgent since the emergence of COVID-19. They knew that compared to other groups, COVID-19 could be a burden or deadly for African Americans with pre-existing, chronic health conditions. That’s why Hildreth pushed to locate a free, drive-up COVID-19 testing center on his campus in Nashville’s largely Black Northside. In recent weeks, emerging reports have exposed the depth of racial health disparities and other vulnerabilities that exist across the U.S.
Meharry Medical College is not unlike most colleges and universities where campus life and learning have been upended by the virus. Still, Hildreth says he is not only determined to get his future physicians to the finish line, he wants to make sure that those in their last year “walk” in May.
In our conversation with Hildreth, he discusses COVID-19, from the nation’s response, to the need for a “new normal,” to HBCUs and, of course, the science behind the novel coronavirus.
