Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Update

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are part of our vision to Achieve New Heights in Medical Education. We have been working diligently on initiatives to ensure that we create an environment where everyone feels safe, valued and included. This correspondence serves to summarizes the initiatives taken to-date on this important strategic focus.

The four Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Task Force (DEITF) groups (Community, Curriculum, Communication, and Climate) provided formal presentations to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Advisory Council (DEIAC) in April. Following these presentations, the Advisory Council began meeting every two weeks to further discuss the proposals and recommendations.

A stoplight ranking of the recommendations was created where those in green were either currently being worked on or could be completed within a short timespan (within approximately 90 days), yellow is items we are committed to but will take more time, and red reflects those which are not able to be done at this time. None of the recommendations were listed as red. The Council continues to meet on a regular basis to ensure that our initiatives are moving forward. A summary of the green coded initiatives is below.

Updates on our progress will be provided quarterly. Working together, we will continue moving forward with a transformative change to further ingrain Diversity, Equity and Inclusion into our culture.

This article was originally published in the September 2021 issue of the Vista View Newsletter, which can be found here.