Dr. Adewole Adamson
Adewole “Ade” Adamson always wanted to be a doctor. He had a natural inclination to the hard sciences and loved interacting with people. Members of his family were doctors. It seemed like a natural fit. As he moved through his undergraduate career at Morehouse College, Ade found that he wanted “to move past the beakers and Bunsen burners to something more universally applicable.” He wanted to be a medical doctor, but he also wanted to understand the broader ecosystem that shaped healthcare outcomes. Enter the Presidential Fellows program.
The Fellows program offered him insight into the world of public policy that his hard science training did not provide. He learned how decision-making was done at the federal level, and how politics and social systems interacted to form the policies that guided his profession. During his Fellowship year, he researched President George W. Bush’s policies on stem-cell research. The topic was directly relevant to his academic career. Back at Morehouse, he was performing his own scientific research using stem cells. The Fellowship offered him the opportunity to analyze the political dynamics that were shaping his very own research. This new lens was one he would never stop exploring.
Following the Fellowship, Ade was eager to continue his exposure to public policy. He interned for Congressman Gene Green on Capitol Hill. At the time, Congressman Green served on the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health giving Ade deeper exposure to the policy-making process in regards to health and medical services. He credits the Fellowship with opening doors to his Congressional internship and future opportunities to learn “how policy decisions get made at the federal level.”
As he progressed through his medical training, Ade retained his interest in policy. While completing his degree at Harvard Medical School, he also joined the university’s Kennedy School of Government to pursue a master’s degree in public policy as a Zuckerman Fellow. As a resident, his public policy background informed how he approached his work. He saw in the patients that he treated how much broader systemic issues that fall well outside of the scope of medicine impacted healthcare outcomes and access to care. It was a view that few of his colleagues fully appreciated because they lacked the same training in public policy. After a brief period of uncertainty in which he considered putting his talents towards tackling those issues outside of medicine, he plowed ahead in his pursuit of becoming a board-certified doctor.
Today, Dr. Adamson is able to tap into both interests. He is a dermatologist working directly with patients and getting the fulfillment that comes with successfully treating skin cancer or solving intractable health problems. He spends the majority of his time as a researcher examining disparities in access to care and “how effectively and efficiently the health care system delivers care to patients with skin cancer, the most common type of cancer in the United States.” Additionally, he is an assistant professor at Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is the Director of the Pigmented Lesion Clinic.
Dr. Adamson has weaved together two typically divergent fields of healthcare, direct patient care and health policy, into what he describes as his dream job. He uses this duality to his advantage as a mentor in the Fellows program where he often guides young students with similar interests in hard sciences and public policy.
In the nearly 10 years that he has served as a mentor, Dr. Adamson has learned from his mentees just as much as they have learned from him. He remarked, “My experience as a mentor has been a humbling experience. I’ve learned a lot from being a mentor. I beam with pride when students have their finished product.”
Dr. Adamson represents the best the Presidential Fellows program has to offer. We are proud to call him one of our own and feature him in this month’s Alumni Spotlight.
Originally published October 14, 2020.