Apr. 28, 2026
Doctors Making a Difference: Estell Williams, MD
For Estell Williams, MD, supporting the development of the next generation of physicians, particularly those who have historically faced systemic barriers to entry, is at the heart of her work outside of her clinical practice as a surgeon at UW Medical Center. Dr. Williams spoke with WSMA Reports about her deep commitment to promoting health equity through mentorship, advocacy, and early investment in students to help ensure the physician workforce mirrors the population it serves.
WSMA Reports: What has driven you to make of advocacy work such a big part of your career?
Dr. Williams: At the core of my advocacy work lives the quote by social justice revolutionary Angela Davis, “I’m no longer accepting the things I cannot change, I’m changing the things I cannot accept.” From the time I was an early undergraduate student I began envisioning the type of career I wanted to have in medicine when I finally became a doctor. That vision always included leading initiatives that had profound impacts on my journey. I was a participant and recipient of intentional investment and mentorship. I participated in programs founded and run by people who lived through the circumstances they were helping young people navigate. I saw what change looks like within my own life and I knew I wanted to have that type of impact on communities.
Can you tell readers a little bit about UW's Doctor's for a Day program and why you think this type of program is so important?
Doctor For a Day is a STEM program that was created to address the shortage of underrepresented students of color in health careers. It was initially started by a University of Washington School of Medicine medical student Joy Thurman-Nguyen during her first year of medical school. Now a family medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente in Seattle, WA, Dr. Thurman-Nguyen grew up in Seattle and faced a lack of exposure to people of color in health careers. In 2014 when she had finally reached medical school, she envisioned bringing a hands-on, educational day of activities to K-12 students of color, featuring role models — volunteer doctors, physical therapists, nurses and dental students — who looked like them.
This resonated with me so closely because she and I shared a similar experience and vision for how we can help shape the idea of what is considered possible for so many students. So as an intern in my general surgery training program at the University of Washington I began working with her to lead the program. The University of Washington School of Medicine and particularly Dean Paul Ramsey, MD, offered start-up funding for the program and collaborated with the University of Washington Network for Underrepresented Residents and Fellows to bring resident and fellow volunteers to help mentor students and lead the workshops with the medical students. He funded part of my appointment when I was recruited as faculty to UW to grow the program and expand outreach work in the School of Medicine.
The program has grown exponentially captured here in our UW Doctor for a Day Annual Report and is now one of five outreach programs within the center I developed, the Center for Workforce Inclusion and Healthcare System Equity. Medical students, residents, fellows and attending physicians from underrepresented groups served as role models and mentors leading these workshops, interacting with students and sharing their personal stories of obstacles and successes. DFAD The program now serves more than 1,000 students annually in its programming that runs across the K-12 academic school year September through May. Over the years, word of the program spread rapidly within the Seattle and Greater Seattle area. Partnerships were forged with AfricaTown Center for Excellence and Innovation, Federal Way Boys and Girls Club, Healers of Tomorrow, and many more local nonprofit organizations and school districts.
Continued engagement of K-12 students through these pathway programs and mentorship improve the connection of an amazing pool of talented disenfranchised students that may not otherwise continue on the path to a career in health care. To truly increase students who are overlooked and often disregarded in health professions we must invest in students early and create an ecosystem that ensures their success.
Promoting health equity in medicine is a big priority for you. What are you focusing on in your roles as the executive director for UW's Center for Workforce Inclusion and Healthcare System Equity and as a member of WSMA's DEIB Committee?
The Center for Workforce Inclusion for Healthcare System Equity was born out of my realization that we needed a comprehensive effort to support the future development of health leaders. There are many assaults happening to our students that are compromising the ability of our professions to adequately recruit, train, and staff clinics and hospitals delivering care. Health equity involves more than what happens at the bedside but begins much earlier. Health equity involves considering that if we, as a society, aren't providing quality education, we limit the pool of qualified students who can apply to college to make it to medical school or physician assistant school or become a nurse practitioner. When we face limits on the amount of loans students can access, we forfeit the ability of more students to access higher education given financial gaps that change their decision about what career they will enter because they need to feed themselves and contribute financially to their families. We sometimes have such tunnel vision on addressing health equity we lack critical analysis of all the barriers that not only our patients face, but our replacements.
I am focusing on building systems that evaluate the larger equity issues at play and how we can build models and educate our Legislature to invest in programs that act earlier. If we wait until it's time to recruit for residency, we have already lost hundreds from the pool in unrealized potential of students who could have gone on to not only address our health care workforce shortage in this state, but also could have been profound clinicians taking excellent care of patients and closing health care gaps.
What are you hoping to accomplish in your role as a member of the WSMA Foundation board?
I was initially approached by Dr. Mika Sinanan, a dear colleague, friend, and mentor to join as a WSMA Foundation board member. Initially the ask was to help expand the health equity strategic focus area that the board was embarking on at the time. The WSMA as an organization and the Foundation board were so committed to this work that was the easy part of the role. Now my focus has shifted. As I complete my final term I seek to truly engage with the strength of this organization, working across Washington state’s rural and urban communities to strengthen its connections with the next generation of future health leaders who will take the mantle and build on the strong foundation that has been laid. I hope to utilize the work I am doing with WIHSE to develop intentional collaboration through the Foundation so we are mentoring students and building our bench of talented students who will go on to receive the WSMA scholarship to attend medical school and remain in Washington to serve the people of the state as future leaders and advocates that improve the health of all Washingtonians. It has been an honor to work alongside a dedicated group of physicians who move beyond words and ACT as advocates in everything they do from the time they spend at the bedside with patients to their personal time they VOLUNTEER to organizations like WSMA Foundation board. It is these relationships that give me hope during times of uncertainty that we currently face.
This article was featured in the May/June 2026 issue of WSMA Reports, WSMA's print magazine.