Program Director’s Corner – August 2020
APDEM Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee
Ricardo Correa, MD, EdD and Rana Malek, MD
University of Arizona College of Medicine-Phoenix (ricardocorrea@arizona.edu)
University of Maryland School of Medicine (rmalek@som.umaryland.edu)
Biases based on ethnicity, race and gender serve as the basis for the discriminatory policies and practices that uphold systemic inequity. While some biases stem from real-world encounters, most develop from the stories we are told. As mechanisms that encourage self-expression and critical inquiry—as well as transmit knowledge and values—multiple strategies have the potential to positively shift, as well as exacerbate deep-rooted historical biases. In June 2020, The Association of Program Director for Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism (APDEM), as a leader on graduate medical education training, established the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) committee to address many of these issues specifically for our endocrine program community.
A call for volunteers for the DEI resulted in a diverse group of program directors, fellows and, program coordinators. The first meeting was held via Zoom in July and the participation was outstanding. The committee’s proposed diversity statement is: APDEM strives to have an endocrinology community that is diverse and inclusive. This encompasses many characteristics for our fellows, faculties, program leaders and program coordinators, including but not limited to race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, education, culture, heritage, religion, geography, physical abilities and socio-economic status. We want to engage in change not only at the individual program level but also at system level practices nationwide that advance diversity and inclusion creating an environment that fosters belonging and respect for all.
Furthermore, the goals of the committee are:
- To increase fellows’ and faculty’s understanding of diversity, inclusion and health equity through multiple methods
- To create curricula and programs focused on addressing the social determinants of health and health equity, with specific focus on local/program specific healthcare disparities
- To develop resources to assist programs in recruiting a diverse group of fellows, including efforts aimed at decreasing unconscious bias during the application review and interview processes
- To increase recruitment of underrepresented minorities (URM) in endocrine and prepare them to stay in academic medicine with appropriate mentorship with a goal of creating an inclusive environment
Given the large scope of the committee, two sub-committees—Diversity/Inclusion and Health Equity were created with sub-committee specific meetings occurring in August 2020. The immediate task for the D/I subcommittee was to create a toolkit that could be used to increase diversity in the fellowship application process. You can find the toolkit in this link here.
Health Equity
Health disparities, also called health inequities, have gained a tremendous amount of attention from physicians and health policy experts over the past few years and most recently during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2019, it has been an ACGME common program requirement to train fellows in health disparities and most recently was included in the ACGME survey for the 2019-2020 academic year. Addressing health disparities requires a multi-level approach and examination of contributing structural and social factors. To understand how our clinical practice impacts health inequities among our patient populations, it is critical to develop a health equity curriculum that should be teach to our fellows and faculties. The Health Equity Sub-committee will be tasked with addressing this need.
The DEI Committee is a commitment from APDEM to address the diversity and inclusion in our field as well as train the future generation of endocrinologists in health equity. We will periodically update APDEM members in the Program Director’s Corner.
References
- AAMC “Teaching Residents Population Health Management” https://store.aamc.org/downloadable/download/sample/sample_id/311/ 2019
- Graduate Medical Education Interest Group, Institute for Healthcare Improvement, http://www.ihi.org/education/IHIOpenSchool/Chapters/Groups/Faculty/Pages/GMENetw ork.aspx