Diversity and Inclusion

• Dr. Patricia Whitley Williams, Associate Dean for Inclusion and Diversity and Professor of Pediatrics, discusses diversity in our residency program.

• Dr. Uche Azubuine, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics is now the leader of a new task force for Diversity and Inclusion. The description of this task force is below. 

This task force will address three areas for improvement:

• Recruitment and retention of Underrepresented in Medicine (URM) faculty, residents and staff
• Education
• Health Inequity

Recruitment- The Pediatric Department has made efforts in the past to increase URM physicians and residents including attending recruitment fairs held by national organizations such as Student National Medical Association and Latino Medical Student Association. These organizations were created for the support of African American and Latino students and physicians. We look to improve our efforts by including task force members on the search committee for new employees and mandating that all members of the search committee attend implicit bias training, on an annual basis, prior to interviewing candidates.

Education- In the past few years there have been many lectures for residents and faculty on implicit bias and all employees are required to complete web based educational modules on racism and sexism in the workplace. Our Task Force will strengthen our educational efforts by implementing formal curriculum that includes in-person lectures and workshops for residents and nurses regarding implicit bias, microaggressions and health disparities. Improving the insight of our faculty, residents and staff will allow us to meet the needs of the diverse population we serve.

Health Inequity- Our Task Force will also work to improve the patient experience by ensuring care is equal regardless of ethnicity or gender. We will implement a feedback system where every patient and their family will have a voice to critique their experience in the children’s hospital and allow us to improve the care that we provide. We plan to objectively create quality improvement projects that identify biases and strive to create a solution.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”- Maya Angelou

Our mission is to create an environment where every employee feels their ideas and contributions are respected and hold merit, and where every patient feels their complaints are valid and their lives have value.

We will work to create and maintain an atmosphere where differences are valued and celebrated, knowing institutional diversity fuels the advancement of knowledge, promotes improved patient care and fosters excellence.