Black History Month | Alexis Halyard, MD: ‘The Benefit of Community’

2.26.2025

Black History Month | Alexis Halyard, MD: ‘The Benefit of Community’

By Stacey Sepp

February is Black History Month, a time to reflect on the extraordinary contributions of African Americans. The 2025 theme, “African Americans and Labor: Acknowledging Our Contributions Across UVA Health,” encourages us to "to focus on the various and profound ways that work and working of all kinds — free and unfree; skilled and unskilled; vocational and voluntary — intersect with the collective experiences of Black people." In the latest installment in Connect’s Black History Month series, we introduce you to another UVA Health team member supporting our strategic plan initiatives of community engagement and health equity — this time, in Northern Virginia.

Alexis Halyard, MD’s commitment to the betterment of community spans generations. The physician who practices at UVA Health Bull Run Family Medicine in Manassas, Virginia, grew up in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, as the daughter of a family medicine doctor (mother) and social worker (father). Her maternal grandparents came to the United States from Jamaica. Her grandmother was a New York City public school teacher and principal, and her grandfather — after fighting in World War II — became a public librarian.

“I come from a long line of folks who value working in the community,” Dr. Halyard explains. “I think the strength of our world is community. It helps combat isolation and promote health, and there are so many different roles in society that we can all occupy that help bolster community.”

‘I Do This Because I Care’

With early interest in family medicine, Halyard attended Emory University’s School of Medicine in Atlanta and completed her residency at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she gained a full spectrum of experience ranging from internal and pediatric medicine to surgery, emergency, and labor and delivery.

“All of those clinical settings reminded me of the importance and role of the family doc to be there to see folks through the various seasons of their lives,” she says. “I like family medicine because I never see the same thing from day-to-day. Even if I’m seeing a lot of the same folks, I’m seeing them for different reasons and conditions. I can’t see myself [practicing] any other specialty other than family medicine. It’s the one for me.”

Family medicine has provided a way for Dr. Halyard to make a difference in the Manassas community, while hopefully changing a few hearts and minds along the way.

“I know the public can sometimes feel like healthcare systems don’t care about them or that doctors are rushing them through … but from the front desk to the nurses to the physicians, the majority of people [in healthcare] have come this far because they really care,” she shares. “At the end of the day, my objective is to do no harm and try to actively help people. I do this because I care. I want to build those relationships, and I want folks to feel comfortable talking to me about whatever they’re going through.”

Impact of Black History Month

Black medical providers of the past, starting with her mother, have profoundly influenced Dr. Halyard’s career. She believes Black History Month is a time to reflect on the events and people who have paved the way for her as a medical professional.

She mentions the impact of the Flexner Report of 1910 that ultimately led to the closure of about 75 percent of U.S. medical schools, including five of the then seven Black medical colleges, severely limiting the number of Black doctors who could enter the profession. The report was intended to standardize training across the profession, but ended up creating healthcare gaps for minority populations including the Black community.

“I think about someone like Dr. Hamilton Holmes, the very first Black medical student at Emory University, a trailblazer who was willing to occupy a space no one had before, knowing that people actively didn’t want him in that space,” Dr. Halyard says. “I think of the Black midwives who were delivering children when Black women weren’t able to be seen by white OB/GYN doctors … and the ways that the medical society worked to discredit midwives, which is not unique to Black women, but also extends to women in general.”

“For me to be sitting in this chair, I think about what these people sacrificed for me to have this privilege and this honor. February is definitely a time for reflection. The brevity of the month makes it even more acute that this is a time for us to consider the contributions of Black people to this country in all the different realms of knowledge, remembering that the world we live in today is because a lot of folks had it harder and were still able to persist when the consequences were much steeper.”

Cultivating Community

Each day, Dr. Halyard is guided by the central Hippocratic Oath principle to “do no harm,” which she applies to both her work as a physician and in the community. She is proud that UVA Health’s community hospitals and clinics in Northern Virginia and Culpeper have a good pulse on what’s happening locally, and actively work to uplift and support those efforts.

“I don’t see anything that’s taking me away from this community anytime soon. I love working here,” she states. “I think when we meet people on the individual level, we realize we have more in common. That’s the benefit of community — having space where we can meet each other as individuals and realize that we all ultimately have the same goals.”