Deanna W. Adkins Oral History Interview, 2024

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Summary

Creator:
Adkins, Deanna W.
Abstract:
Dr. Deanna Wilson Adkins is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Duke. She is Pediatric Endocrinologist, Diabetes and Metabolism Specialist, and director and founder of Duke Child and Adolescent Gender Care Clinic. This collection contains 1 oral history interview conducted on February 12, 2024 by Caroline Overton as part of the Bass Connections Agents of Change Oral History Project. In the interview, Adkins discusses her childhood and family, her pathway into endocrinology, how she became involved in gender-affirming care, her interdisciplinary approach to gender-affirming care, her legal advocacy work, and her advocacy to ensure the Duke Hospital system is welcoming to LGBTQ+ patients. The themes of this interview include medical care for LGBTQ+, trans rights, and the relationship between medicine and advocacy.
Extent:
1 interview (1 transcript) and 975 MB
Collection ID:
OH.ADKINSD

Background

Scope and content:

Includes 1 oral history interview with Dr. Deanna Adkins conducted on February 12, 2024 by Caroline Overton, as part of the Bass Connections Agents of Change Oral History Project.

In the February 12, 2024 interview, Adkins discusses her childhood and family, her pathway into endocrinology, how she became involved in gender-affirming care, her interdisciplinary approach to gender-affirming care, her legal advocacy work, and her advocacy to ensure the Duke Hospital system is welcoming to LGBTQ+ patients. The themes of this interview include medical care for LGBTQ+, trans rights, and the relationship between medicine and advocacy.

Biographical / historical:

Dr. Deanna Wilson Adkins, an Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Duke, is a Pediatric Endocrinologist, a Diabetes and Metabolism Specialist, and the director and founder of Duke Child and Adolescent Gender Care Clinic. She attended Georgia Tech for her undergraduate studies and received a degree in molecular biology and genetics. Her medical degree is from the Medical College of Georgia (1997), and she completed a Pediatrics Residency and Fellowship in Pediatric Endocrinology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Adkins grew up in Georgia. Most of her family were farmers, but her mother was an accountant for a rural health system that moved them around a lot. As a result, Adkins spent a lot of time in hospitals growing up and hearing about them. Her mother instilled in her that if she was going to become a doctor, she needed to truly care for her patients.

Adkins originally began practicing endocrinology because she wanted the chance to see her patients all throughout their youth and work with "the whole spectrum of kids." In 2013, a primary care doctor needed to refer a transgender patient to an endocrinologist, and Adkins received the referral. Afterwards, she began to take more transgender patients upon realizing they had to travel states away to access medical care. She found the work "incredibly rewarding" because of the lifesaving effect it had on her patients and chose to commit to specializing in gender-affirming care.

When she founded the clinic, she quickly realized quality gender-affirming care would require a multidisciplinary team and began to recruit more practitioners. For the first few years, the clinic was the only option for gender-affirming care for transgender youth in the Southeast, and the number of patients multiplied. When one of her patients sued a Florida school system for the right to use the bathroom corresponding with their identity, Adkins became an expert witness for the case. This led to a close relationship with the ACLU and involvement in more cases as an expert witness.

Additionally, Adkins became involved in LGBTQ+ advocacy within the Duke medical system by ensuring medical staff were trained in practices such as pronoun sharing, and that medical data systems were designed with LGBTQ+ patients in mind.

Acquisition information:
Accession A2024.057 (transferred by Rebecca Williams, May 2024)
Processing information:

Processed by Lucy Waldrop: September 2024

Arrangement:
Organized into the following series: Interview, February 12, 2024.
Rules or conventions:
DACS

Contents

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Restrictions:

None.

Terms of access:

Copyright for Official University records is held by Duke University; all other copyright is retained by the authors of items in these papers, or their descendants, as stipulated by United States copyright law.

Preferred citation:

[Identification of item], Deanna Adkins Oral History Interview, Duke University Medical Center Archives.