Black History Month Panel: Celebrating Through Awareness

JOIN US AS WE CLOSE OUT BLACK HISTORY MONTH WITH A MUCH NEEDED PANEL DISCUSSION ON ASPECTS OF THE BLACK EXPERIENCE IN AMERICA WITH EXPERTS IN MENTAL HEALTH, MATERNAL HEALTH, AND COVID-19.

Panelists Include:

Danisha Almonte Luciano, Licensed Psychotherapist in Texas & New York and Consultant in racial equity and mental health. She has had experience working with individuals, couples, and families who are struggling with various mental health concerns, including but not limited to, relationship issues, trauma, anxiety, depression, acculturation, and identity issues. She is passionate about helping others through their healing especially those in the Black and Latinx community. As a child of Dominican & Cuban immigrants and in her clinical work, she comprehends the challenges of adapting to new environments and cultural values. Her goal is to foster spaces to make for the collective healing of racism and white supremacy.

Regina Conceição has been a doula for 20 years. Regina is a DONA-certified birth doula, Ancient Song certified postpartum doula, a lactation counselor (CLC), and holds the CDA (Child Development Associate) credential, and FDC (Family Development Credential). Before joining the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Healthy Start Brooklyn By My Side Birth Support program in 2010, she worked as a doula and child and family specialist at the Columbia University Early Head Start Program. She believes that all pregnant people deserve to be supported by a doula if they choose, regardless of their economic situation. Regina became the By My Side Doula coordinator in 2018. Regina was featured in the second episode of Romper Doula Diaries and the Huffington Post piece, “Why We Need More Black Doulas. Last April she was featured in The New Yorker piece, “A Chaotic Week for Pregnant Women in New York and this past August co-authored a piece titled Mobilizing a Public Health Response: Supporting the Perinatal Needs of New Yorkers During the Covid-19 Pandemic in the Maternal and Child Health Journal. In her spare time when there is no pandemic, you can find Regina on the dance floor dancing to kizomba, semba, and afro beats.

Dr. Erica Beauplan is an actively practicing Board Certified Internal Medicine physician in the state of New York. She left the mean streets of Long Island where she was raised to return to her birthplace of Brooklyn, where she completed a double major to earn her Bachelor’s in History and Philosophy. She moved her sights up north and matriculated into Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine in the heart of historic Harlem. The pinnacle of that experience was walking across the stage of the legendary Apollo Theater where she humbly received her medical diploma with Alpha Omega Alpha Honor Society honors. Knowing she could never leave her great home state behind, she was determined to complete the final leg of her medical training also in New York, this time heading all the way to the East End of Long Island to join a dually accredited Internal Medicine Residency Program sponsored by Stony Brook University. After finally completing a long and arduous academic journey which culminated in her being named Internal Medicine Resident of the Year at graduation, she accepted a full-time position within the Northwell Health medical system where she currently practices as an Academic Hospitalist. When not caring for acutely ill patients, she immerses herself into her other passion of mentorship and teaching. As an Assistant Professor for the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, she regularly guides medical students and resident trainees through their own education with the goal of molding the next generation of physicians into intelligent, thoughtful, and humane providers ready to care for the ever-diversifying medical landscape that we have today. When not working on-site, Dr. Beauplan spends the majority of her time and effort into volunteerism, both through her membership in The Links, Incorporated, an international nonprofit community service organization of Black women, and independently through speaking engagements and programming focused on Black and Brown communities. She is driven by the inequalities in healthcare to improve the numbers of underrepresented minorities in medicine and to help these communities reach a higher level of health literacy, equity, and care.