Sunset on 2020

As the sun sets on another year, I keep reflecting back on 2020 ...its personal heartbreaks and setbacks, but also the lessons learned, those moments of piercing clarity and reckoning with the decisions made by each of us individually and society as a collective.

In short, it's impossible to really sum up this year in one sole reflection -- it's futile to wrap it up through a tidy social media post or an essay.

As a journalist, it's also been a moment to think on what narratives I've both been assigned and personally chosen to highlight. What voices are left out, which ones are given a spotlight, and what can be done better moving forward? How can *I* be better and continue to hold myself accountable?

I've always felt so honored that people are willing to take the time to confide in me, to communicate their stories.

Here are a few that I've been privileged to share this year:

** Dr. David Fajgenbaum who spoke about 'chasing his own cure' for Castleman disease and what that means for others living with rare diseases.

** NYC-based actor and HIV advocate Dimitri Joseph Moïse who discussed his own story of living with HIV and why it's important to dispel misconceptions about HIV and COVID-19.

** Gwen Vogelzang and Megan Hufton who shared their different perspectives on life as parents of autistic children during a year when COVID-19 has upended everything from work to school to family life.

** Kathryn Whetten, director of the Center for Health Policy and Inequalities Research at the Sanford School of Public Policy, and Sara LeGrand, associate research professor in the Duke Global Health Institute - DGHI, on their work addressing health disparities among LGBTQIA+ people both in the U.S. and around the globe.

** Buck Mason co-founders Erik Allen Ford and Sasha Koehn discussed their company's project of donating 1 million masks to medical and essential workers as COVID-19 swept through the nation.

** Creative writing professor Darlene Anita Scott spoke about how a serious medical misdiagnosis changed her life and why her story is important for others to hear -- In the U.S., 12 million people are affected by medical diagnostic errors each year, while an estimated 40,000 to 80,000 people die annually from complications from these misdiagnoses. Women and minorities are 20 to 30 percent more likely to be misdiagnosed.

** Bill Thompson who opened up about his experience living with bladder cancer -- severe bladder cancer disproportionately affects Black men in the U.S.

** Duke Global Health Institute - DGHI visiting professor Diana Silimperi discussed how she's using her global health expertise to help her own community in Pamlico County, North Carolina deal with the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic.

** The range of medical and public health experts who laid out just how destructive President Donald Trump's administration has been on American health -- in just three years, 2 million lost their healthcare and *thousands* died prematurely.

** For World AIDS Day, Dr. Hyman Scott, MPH, of Bridge HIV and UCSF, and Dr. Robert Gross, MSCE, of the Penn Center for AIDS Research, outlined important parallels between the AIDS crisis and COVID-19.

** Fine artist Eric Rhein described his moving new monograph-memoir "Lifelines," a personal account of love and loss while living with HIV, and his favorite memoirs by other creatives.

** Dr. Diana Grigsby-Toussaint, of the Brown University School of Public Health, Steven Lopez, of UnidosUS, and American Nurses Association President Ernest Grant, PhD,RN,FAAN, highlighted why some Black and Latinx communities might be reluctant to embrace the COVID-19 vaccine rollout due to this country's destructive -- at times deadly -- history of racism in medicine.

Thank you to all of these people -- and many many many more -- and all of my editors and media colleagues who helped shed light on these important issues. Cheers to a safe, healthy and happy new year!

- B