Danielle Hairston is an American psychiatrist who is Director of Residency Training in the Department of Psychiatry at Howard University College of Medicine, and a practicing psychiatrist in the Division of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. Hairston is also the Scientific Program Chair for the Black Psychiatrists of America and the President of the American Psychiatric Association's Black Caucus. Hairston is known for speaking and writing on the impact of racial trauma and culture on mental health.
Early life and education
Hairston was born in the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C. Her father worked in the military and her mother worked as a teacher. Before college, she decided she wanted to pursue medicine. She pursued an undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences at Rutgers University in New Jersey. During her undergraduate degree, she worked in an HIV clinic. She then undertook a medical degree at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C. During medical school, Hairston became interested in psychiatry, even though she had planned on pursuing internal medicine to focus her clinical work in HIV. In 2012, Hairston pursued her residency in general psychiatry at Howard University and went on to become the Chief Resident in the Department of Psychiatry.
Career and research
Hairston joined the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in the Department of Psychiatry. During this time, she pursued her fellowship training in Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. In 2018, Hairston returned to Howard University College of Medicine as the appointed Psychiatry Residency Training Director. Hairston is also a member of the Curriculum Task Force for the Department of Psychiatry. Hairston is also a practicing psychiatrist in the Division of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry at the University of MarylandMedical Center in Baltimore, Maryland. She focuses her medical practice in both general psychiatry and psychosomatic medicine. Since 2016, Hairston has served as Scientific Program Chair of the Black Psychiatrists of America and she was elected as President of the Black Caucus of the American Psychiatric Association. Hairston was the Early Career Representative for the APA’s Black Caucus. Hairston is also a Work Group Member of the Mental Health:A Guide for Faith Leaders and she started a community outreach program to facilitate the partnership between mental health professionals, like herself, and faith groups in the community.
Advocacy for Black physicians
Hairston has been an advocate for fighting racial bias in medicine and addressing diversity in medicine. She was one of ten Black physicians who spoke about issues facing Black physicians in the #SharetheMicNowMed campaign. In an interview with NPR, she shared her own personal experiences with bias in medicine when one of her white colleagues mistook her for a patient's caregiver. "I don't even necessarily think that he's racist," Hairston said. "It's just that that's the bias."
Hairston’s clinical work and publications focus on the effects of racism on mental health. In a Slatenews article, Hairston discussed how media-based distress, such as posting videos and pictures of police brutality against Black people, is traumatic and can lead to mental health consequences in the Black community. Hairston and her colleagues have been advocating for a change in the DSM-5 criteria to include media-based trauma to account for the severe trauma that Black people disproportionately face. Hairston has treated patients with media-based trauma related distress and she is an advocate for the awareness of the potential for these exposures to lead to depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. She uses her social media presence to advocate and educate her followers on how to be an ally for victims of racial trauma.
Writing
In 2018, Hairston is a contributing author the book Racism and Psychiatry: Contemporary Issues and Interventions discussing the origins of racism in medicine, and specifically in her field of psychiatry. She contributed to the first chapter on the Origins of Racism in American Medicine and Psychiatry and discusses how the thoughts, actions, and behaviors of healthcare workers can impact the health of Black patients in the chapter Clinician Bias in Diagnosis and Treatment. Der Spiegel quoted Hairston on the impact of violent images.
Gordon-Achebe K., Hairston D.R., Miller S., Legha R., Starks S. Origins of Racism in American Medicine and Psychiatry. In: Medlock M., Shtasel D., Trinh NH., Williams D. Racism and Psychiatry. Current Clinical Psychiatry. Humana Press, Cham
Hairston, D. R., de Similien, R. H., Himelhoch, S., & Forrester, A.. Treatment of phantom shocks: A case report. The International Journal of Psychiatry in Medicine, 54, 181–187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091217418802153
Hairston D.R., Gibbs T.A., Wong S.S., Jordan A. Clinician Bias in Diagnosis and Treatment. In: Medlock M., Shtasel D., Trinh NH., Williams D. Racism and Psychiatry. Current Clinical Psychiatry. Humana Press, Cham
Similien, Ralph & Hairston, Danielle & Kumari, Suneeta & Matthews, Gary & Wasser, Tobias & Malik, Mansoor & Manalai, Partam.. Sociodemographic and clinical correlates of the frequently hospitalized African American patients with severe and persistent mental illness. Annals of clinical psychiatry : official journal of the American Academy of Clinical Psychiatrists. 30. 305-310.
