Publications
An Approach to Faculty Development for Underrepresented Minorities in Medicine
The diversity of the US physician workforce lags significantly behind the population, and the disparities in academic medicine are even greater, with underrepresented in medicine (URM) physicians accounting for only 6.8% of all US medical school faculty. We describe a "for URM by URM" pilot approach to faculty development for junior URM Family Medicine physicians that targets unique challenges faced by URM faculty.
Teaching Racial Affinity Caucusing as a Tool to Learn About Racial Health Inequity Through an Experiential Workshop
In its landmark report, Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care, the Institute of Medicine concluded that unconscious or implicit negative racial attitudes and stereotypes contribute to poorer health outcomes for patients of color. We describe and report on the outcome of teaching a workshop on the tool of racial affinity caucusing to address these issues.
Addressing Racism in Medical Education: An Interactive Training Module
Education of health care clinicians on racial and ethnic disparities has primarily focused on emphasizing statistics and cultural competency, with minimal attention to racism. Learning about racism and unconscious processes provides skills that reduce bias when interacting with minority patients. This paper describes the responses to a relationship-based workshop and toolkit highlighting issues that medical educators should address when teaching about racism in the context of pernicious health disparities.
Toolkit for Teaching About Racism in the Context of Persistent Health and Healthcare Disparities.
This toolkit was formed by the listed contributors who sought to explore how to teach health care providers to reduce healthcare inequities. Our discussions have focused on race and racism but include a larger critical dialogue on bias, identity, intersectionality, and privilege. This toolkit provides examples of resources and activities that many of us are using in our attempts to teach these topics. We acknowledge that there are many other useful resources out there and we continue to seek them out. We hope that you will find this information useful in creating your own learning activities and that you will join us in our efforts to develop innovative, challenging and thoughtful ways to teach beyond disparities.
In Response to: "Systemic Racism and Health Disparities: A Statement From Editors of Family Medicine Journals."
We, the inaugural participants in the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine (STFM) Leadership through Scholarship Fellowship (a group of early-career underrepresented in medicine [URM] minority faculty), commend the editors of family medicine journals for a powerful statement of commitment to eliminate structural racism in the editorial process of manuscript review and to sponsor scholarly talent among URM physicians. In the editorial, six key steps toward the advancement of equity within our specialty were identified.1 Among those, encouraging and mentoring authors from URM groups, defined as physicians who are Black or African American, Latinx, or Native American, deserves further discussion as currently not much is written on models that go beyond skills-based training to address the specific needs and challenges encountered by URM.2.
Teaching About Racism in Medical Education: A Mixed-Method Analysis of a Train-the-Trainer Faculty Development Workshop
Curriculum addressing racism as a driver of inequities is lacking at most health professional programs. We describe and evaluate a faculty development workshop on teaching about racism to facilitate curriculum development at home institutions.
Antiracism in Residency: A Multimethod Intervention to Increase Racial Diversity in a Community-Based Residency Program
In order to address racial health inequity, it is imperative to create diverse physician workforce and leadership. We describe and report on the outcomes of a comprehensive diversity initiative at our residency with the goal of increasing the racial diversity of residents and faculty.
Matching Our Mission: A Strategic Plan to Create a Diverse Family Medicine Residency
Increasing the number of underrepresented minority (URM) physicians improves access and quality of care. URMs are more likely to practice primary care and work in underserved communities. The racial and ethnic diversity of family physicians lags behind the general population. To create a more diverse residency, the Boston Medical Center Family Medicine Residency Program (BMCFMRP) developed, implemented, and evaluated a strategic plan for diversity recruitment.
Racial Justice Curricula in Family Medicine Residency Programs: A CERA Survey of Program Directors
Addressing health disparities includes education on racism, such as racial justice curricula (RJC). We surveyed program directors (PDs) about the prevalence and characteristics of RJC in family medicine residency programs (FMRPs).
Abolish the Minority Woman Tax!
In this issue of the Journal of Women's Health, Rodrigues Armijo et al.1 are to be commended on their excellent article on citizenship tasks for women physicians in academic medicine and the extra burden they shoulder for the sole privilege of being academic physicians. They have elucidated how citizenship tasks are unfairly distributed and coined a new addition to the literature—a “citizenship tax.” It is appalling, but it is the very tip of the iceberg.
Towards a Common Lexicon for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Work in Academic Medicine
This article aspires to introduce a basic glossary to present terms common to all areas of the academic medical environment and ensure a common meaning. Our glossary defines frequently referenced terms and concepts in equity, diversity and inclusion work that are used in a variety of academic and non-academic settings.
Start With Individuals, but Ensure That Antiracism Becomes an Institutional Value
We were excited to read the article, “Teaching About Racism in Medical Education: A Mixed-method Analysis of a Train-the-Trainer Faculty Development Workshop,” by Dr Edgoose et al. 1 We applaud the authors for curating a day-long faculty development workshop that provided vocabulary, resources, and tools to address racism. We encourage the authors to continue leading this workshop so that more of us can learn from their expertise and wisdom, ground ourselves with a shared language, engage in crucial conversations, and participate in best-practice activities that deepen our awareness around this work.
Black Lives Matter: Moving from passion to action in academic medical institutions
While we are inspired and heartened by the outpouring of support for BLM within the medical community, we also understand that publicly naming and denouncing anti-Black racism is only one step toward achieving health equity. A basic tenet of quality improvement work is that verbal commitments are not enough to improve outcomes. Changing outcomes requires changing the system.
