Physician | Changemaker | Transformative Leadership | Advocate for Diversity and Inclusion

One of Time magazine’s “2021 Next Generational Leaders”, Dr. Chika Stacy Oriuwa is a medical trailblazer spearheading change in healthcare and beyond. She is an accomplished physician, spoken word poet, and advocate for racialized and marginalized populations. Oriuwa draws on her personal and professional experience to share insight and actionable strategies into transformative leadership, mental health and wellness, and igniting change to build a more equitable future for all.

Currently a resident doctor in psychiatry at the University of Toronto (U of T), Oriuwa is a graduate of the University’s Faculty of Medicine. When she arrived as an incoming medical student to find she was the only Black student in her cohort, she channeled this disappointment into action, becoming a vocal advocate for improving disparities in Black health and confronting institutional discrimination.

Since then, Oriuwa has become the first Black woman to be named sole valedictorian of the department and has spoken at numerous national and international events on the topics of DEI, leadership, mental health, and her journey as an underrepresented minority in medicine. Oriuwa was also an ambassador and educator of U of T’s Black Student Application Program, where she saw the faculty admit the largest group of Black medical students in Canadian history.

In addition, Oriuwa is a professional spoken word artist. Working under the Hamilton Youth Poets, she has earned her place as a national slam poetry finalist twice. In 2017, she released her renowned slam poem “Woman, Black” and in 2018 published her seminal article In My White Coat, I am More Black than Ever for FLARE magazine’s Black History Month campaign. She has also been featured on CBC’s The National, CTV News, CP24, Toronto Star, Time magazine, and TODAY, amongst others. She is slated to release her first memoir with HarperCollins in 2024.

A recipient of numerous prestigious awards and honours, Oriuwa was named on Maclean’s Power 50 List in 2022 and was recognized as one of Best Health Magazine’s “2020 Women of the Year”. She was also recently honoured in Mattel’s #ThankYouHeroes campaign alongside five other women with a one-of-a-kind Barbie doll made in her image to commemorate her contributions as a frontline healthcare worker.

In addition to her medical degree, Oriuwa has a master’s degree in Health Systems Leadership and Innovation from the University of Toronto. She also serves on Indigo’s board of directors, using her expertise to inform their efforts in advancing equity and curating spaces of wellness and inclusion.

CEO & Co-Founder, The Moral Injury of Healthcare Author, If I Betray These Words

Wendy Dean, MD introduced the term Moral Injury into the discussion of healthcare workers’ stress. Moral injury is when healthcare professionals are asked to violate their judgment in service to the financial needs of hospitals, insurers and government thus making clinicians unable to provide high-quality care. Dr. Dean is the President and co-founder of The Moral Injury of Healthcare, a nonprofit organization addressing the crisis of clinician distress.

A psychiatrist by training, Dr. Dean left clinical medicine when generating revenue crowded out the patient-centered priorities in her practice. Her focus since has been on finding innovative ways to make medicine better for both patients and healthcare professionals-technologically, ethically, and systemically. Dr. Dean’s expertise is widely sought on Moral Injury in healthcare, women’s leadership, government healthcare investment strategy, medical product development, clinical practice, research oversight, and the ethics of medical innovations.

Dr. Wendy Dean along with Moral Injury of Healthcare is changing the language and the approach to clinician distress in healthcare and was the first to apply the term – Moral Injury in the US National Library of Medicine NIH and STAT article. Moral Injury can be described as a deep soul wound that affects a person’s identity, sense of morality, and relationship to society thus making clinicians unable to provide high-quality care. Moral Injury is often misdiagnosed as a burnout, but Moral Injury offers a broader understanding. Burnout suggests a health professional is at fault for their emotional state: they aren’t resilient enough, and that they need to learn to recover better. Moral Injury suggests some-thing larger is at play. The consequences of this terminology and mindset change are immense, as we learn that hospital dynamics, insurance, litigation, electronic medical records, and policy must evolve in order for health professionals to thrive.‍

Dr. Dean has worked in research funding oversight for the Department of Defense and as an executive for a large non-profit sup-porting military medical research at Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine. As a senior vice president, Dr. Dean was responsible for 2300 staff supporting military medical research throughout the world and worked on simultaneous implementation of human resources information system and customer relations management software platforms.‍

She has participated in efforts sponsored by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Biomedical Advanced Research Development Agency, DARPA, NASA, the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, and others. As Medical Advisor at Tissue Injury and Regenerative Medicine Program Management Office for the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command Dr. Dean was in-charge of product development oversight and was a subject matter expert from the preparation of regulatory submission through FDA licensing for a $300M portfolio of Department of Defense (DoD) funded regenerative medicine research programs.

‍Dr. Dean graduated from Smith College and the University of Massachusetts Medical School. She did her residency training at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, NH.