DBT40 Honoree: Marshala Lee

Title: Director of iREACH Harrington Community Partnership Fund

Workplace: ChristianaCare

Age: 36

As a board-certified family medicine physician, Dr. Marshala Lee works to address health disparities and health care workforce shortages in Delaware. She currently serves as director of the iREACH Harrington Community Partnership Fund at ChristianaCare Institute for Reach on Equity and Community Health.

In that role, Lee helps strengthen community partnerships while developing new models of patient-centered health care to reduce health disparities and provide culturally-appropriate care to underserved communities. Through published works and panel discussions, Lee highlights the importance of workforce diversity, health equity and racism and bias in medicine.

Lee currently leads efforts to develop a barbershop-based initiative to address hypertension in Black men and helped secure personal protective equipment, testing and vaccines to underserved communities. She created a gap-year internship program and MCAT-prep training course for students from underrepresented backgrounds and has personally mentored more than 50 high school, college and medical students.

During the pandemic, Lee sought to hear the concerns of the community directly, spending time meeting with stakeholders to address questions, educate about the vaccine and ultimately decrease hesitancy among the population.

Lee has received numerous awards and honors, including the National Medical Association’s Top Young Healthcare Professionals Under 40, Harvard School of Public Health Presidential Scholar and the University of Maryland’s Family Medical community Outreach Award. This year, Lee was awarded the Brown Medical School’s Junior Alumni Award for Excellence in Diversity.

When she isn’t helping community members receive the COVID-19 vaccine, mentoring students, or serving as vice president for the First State Chapter of the National Medical Association, Lee enjoys cheering for the Philadelphia 76ers and collecting dolls and sports cards. As a Mississippi Delta native, she often cooks soul food for her friends.