For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake.

—Frederick Douglass

In Frederick Douglass’s fiery speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?,” delivered to an antislavery women’s group on July 5th, 1852, he exposes the gross hypocrisy of the American slave system during America’s celebration of freedom as a country.¹ He laments that if he had the nation’s ear, he would call for radical change and artistically use the forces of nature to illustrate the wide sweeping reconstruction America needed(s). In that spirit, the R. Frank Jones Urological Society presents a society meeting that will be a beacon and siren for drastic change in health equity.

The R. Frank Jones Urological Society meeting will be held on Sunday April 30, 2023, from 1:00-4:00 pm. Our speakers will explore 3 critical areas of health equity. Our invited speakers will discuss:

• The critical need for Black doctors and how to be successful in creating and administering a pipeline program.
• The lingering effects of systemic racism, how it negatively impacts health care delivery, and why patient advocacy is essential to health equity.
• The challenge to change health policy and guidelines to improve prostate cancer care and outcomes for Black men.

Our invited guest speaker is Selwyn O. Rogers, Jr. MD, MPH, Professor of Surgery and Executive Vice President of Community Health Engagement at The University of Chicago. Dr. Rogers is also the Founding Director and Trauma Center Chief of the Trauma and Acute Care Surgery Section. The title of his talk will be “Striving for Equity in Trauma Care: Integrating the Voices of the Community.”

The transformative power of natural events to quickly change the landscape is a fitting analogy to the momentum and energy vital to transform the landscape of health equity for all people. Our program is complete with thought-provoking and educational lectures that will expectantly serve as a catalyst to ignite the change that is necessary in health care equity.