Diana M. Cejas

Diana M. Cejas is an American pediatric neurologist, author and disability advocate, currently working at the University of North Carolina and the Carolina Institute of Developmental Disabilities.

Early life, medical school and disability Cejas was born in Virginia, but grew up in Rougemont, North Carolina.

While Cejas was a medical student at Howard University, she found a lump on her neck. Dismissed by her medical providers, she was not diagnosed with cancer until her second year of residency. After the second surgery for her cancer, she had a stroke, which left her with residual dysarthria and hemiparesis. She struggled during her residency due to lack of accommodations for disabled physicians.

Career Cejas works at the University of North Carolina as a pediatric neurologist and assistant professor. She has a dual appointment at the Carolina Institute of Developmental Disabilities where she sees children with developmental disabilities.

She is a member of the American Academy of Neurology and was selected for the Diversity Leadership Program in 2022. She co-created the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force of the Child Neurology Society in 2021 and was elected to the board as the Councilor from the South for 2022-2024.

Cejas is on the advisory committee for the Docs with Disabilities Initiative. She also sits on the advisory panel of the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) on Healthcare Delivery and Disparities Research.

Her work has been published in literary magazines including The Iowa Review, Ecotone, and anthologies including Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century and A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South. She is currently working on a collection of essays describing her life as a physician and a patient.

Honors, societies, and awards

Broyhill Research Award in Child Neurology, 2020 MacDowell Literary Fellowship, 2024

Selected works Peer-reviewed articles Kim Y-M, Cejas DM. Empowering differences: Disability in child neurology training. Annals of the Child Neurology Society. 2023 16 August 2023 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/cns3.20036 Cejas DM. Changing views of disability. Lancet Neurol. 2023 Sep;22(9):781. doi: 10.1016/S1474-4422(23)00276-4. PMID: 37596003. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(23)00276-4/fulltext Brumback AC, Wilson RB, Augustine EF, Bass NE, Bassuk AG, Cejas DM, Shellhaas RA, Strober JB, Tilton AC, Pearl PL. Introducing the Child Neurology Society Leadership, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force. Ann Neurol. 2021 Oct;90(4):537-538. doi: 10.1002/ana.26176. Epub 2021 Aug 4. PMID: 34288089. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.26176 Houtrow A, Martin AJ, Harris D, Cejas D, Hutson R, Mazloomdoost Y, Agrawal RK. Health Equity for Children and Youth With Special Health Care Needs: A Vision for the Future. Pediatrics. 2022 Jun 1;149(Suppl 7):e2021056150F. doi: 10.1542/peds.2021-056150F. PMID: 35642875. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35642875/

Creative nonfiction Convalescence Triptych https://losangelesreview.org/convalescence-triptych-diana-cejas/ Human Growth and Development Passages North https://www.passagesnorth.com/passagesnorthcom/2019/6/7/human-growth-and-development-by-diana-cejas I Have a Disability Too, I Told My Patient. Medpage Today, June 30, 2021 https://www.medpagetoday.com/opinion/second-opinions/93361 Taking Charge of My Story as a Cancer Patient at the Hospital Where I Work. https://catapult.co/stories/taking-charge-of-my-story-as-a-cancer-patient-at-the-hospital-where-i-work The First Thing I Wrote. MedHumChat. https://www.medhumchat.com/medhumchat-blog/2019/11/22/the-first-thing-i-wrote To struggling medical students: Meet the physician who conquered the “no’s” https://www.kevinmd.com/2019/06/to-struggling-medical-students-meet-the-physician-who-conquered-the-nos.html My story isn’t Serena Williams’ story, but some things sound the same https://www.kevinmd.com/2018/08/my-story-isnt-serena-williams-story-but-some-things-sound-the-same.html Welcome to your intern year breakdown https://www.kevinmd.com/2018/06/welcome-to-your-intern-year-breakdown.html Cejas DM. Meat slurry and my particular brand of optimism. Neurology. March 6, 2018. 90 (10) 479-480 https://www.neurology.org/doi/10.1212/wnl.0000000000005078 Cejas DM. A PIECE OF MY MIND. Every Little Anniversary. JAMA. 2015 Dec 1;314(21):2237. doi: 10.1001/jama.2015.12385. PMID: 26624822. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2473497

Selected work on disability and advocacy "Expanding Diversity in Neurology, Inclusive Communication and Accessibility: Diana M. Cejas, MD, MPH" Neurology Live,19 May 2023 https://www.neurologylive.com/view/expanding-diversity-neurology-inclusive-communication-accessibility-diana-cejas Docs with Disabilities Podcast, Episode 22, Part 2: https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/family-medicine/programs/mdisability/transforming-medical-education/docs-disabilities-podcast/docswithdisabilities-podcast-ep-22-diana-cejas-alice-wong The Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine. "The Lingering Lump" https://www.improvediagnosis.org/stories_posts/the-lingering-lump-diana-cejas-story/