Duke Emergency Medicine's Annual Showcase Speaker Highlight: Dr. Martina Caldwell

On Wednesday, September 29, Duke Emergency Medicine and the Department of Surgery Grand Rounds will host Dr. Martina Caldwell as part of Duke Emergency Medicine’s annual Showcase. Dr. Caldwell is a Senior Staff Physician in the Henry Ford Health System and Clinical Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at Wayne State University.

Dr. Caldwell is a health equity researcher whose work focuses on emergency department interventions to improve reproductive health equity using community-based participatory research, mixed methods, and implementation science. She led a behavioral clinical trial for the Women & Person-Empowered Community Access for Reproductive Equity (WE CARE) intervention.

WE CARE is a theory-based, reproductive justice–informed intervention for gender-inclusive, reproductive-aged females. It uses community health workers and an online health decision–support tool called MyPath to provide person-centered family planning counseling, referrals, and care navigation, with social needs screening and referrals.

Dr. Caldwell co-developed WE CARE with community partners Black Family Development, Inc., Alternatives for Girls, and Institute for Population Health. Her other research focuses on diversity and inclusion in emergency medicine and healthcare, health education and literacy, and COVID-19 health equity.

Dr. Caldwell is also Medical Director of Diversity & Inclusion, at Henry Ford Medical Group and has dedicated her personal and professional pursuits to principles of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI). Dr. Caldwell has also led many JEDI initiatives, including an ED Health Educator program, Underrepresented in Medicine Scholarship, Social Emergency Medicine Film and Discussion series, and ED Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Culture and Climate Assessment. 

She has received numerous awards, including the 40 Under 40 Leaders in Minority Health Award, National Minority Quality Forum, Physician-Scientist Track Award, Henry Ford Health System, Health Disparities Research Collaborative Scholar, Diversity Hero Award, Henry Ford Health System, and Health Equity Scholar, Henry Ford Health System.

Dr. Caldwell also serves on several national committees and actively participates in networks related to DEI, including with the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine, Society for Family Planning, American College of Graduate Medical Education, and Association of American Medical Colleges.

She earned a B.A. in Women’s Studies at Emory University in 2005, an M.D. at Yale University in 2010, and an M.S. in Health and Healthcare Research from the University of Michigan in 2016. She then completed her Emergency Medicine residency as Chief Resident in 2014 and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program in 2017 at the University of Michigan.