This month, we feature the work done by the UNMC Department of Pediatrics and Children’s Hospital & Medical Center to advance diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) by highlighting the organizational structure and investments made.
Shirley Delair, MD, associate dean of diversity, equity and inclusion, said the UNMC Department of Pediatrics has had a multiprong approach to advance their DEI efforts. This includes, in chronological order of creation: a vice chair for culture, the establishment of a department-wide antiracism committee led by three co-chairs, and a vice chair for DEI. Children’s Hospital & Medical Center has a director of culture & inclusion, a position that collaborates with, but is independent of the department.
The goal is to create an inclusive interprofessional environment that fosters belonging in education across the learner spectrum. These efforts include faculty and staff and focus on physician and allied health recruitment and retention as well as community engagement.
Chad Abresch, PhD, vice chair of culture for UNMC pediatrics, said Children’s and the department are in regular communication on DEI issues, including quarterly calls and input from UNMC Assistant Vice Chancellor for Inclusion Sheritta Strong, MD, and Dr. Delair.
“The intent is to make sure we all are aware of what each is doing and to think about how we can accelerate and amplify one another’s work,” Dr. Abresch said.
The department’s efforts to build diversity focus not only on workforce but diversifying content among medical students. The department’s antiracism committee – open to faculty, staff, residents and learners – is exploring efforts such as visibility activities, preventing and addressing discrimination, discussing the social determinants of health within the medical school curriculum and strategic diversity building. Through the education subcommittee, the committee is doing a thorough review of the M3 pediatric clerkship lectures through a DEI lens to make sure learners consistently have DEI concepts integrated into the broad range of pediatric lectures they receive.
The antiracism committee, meanwhile, under the auspices of co-chairs Helen Grace, DO, Ruben Quiros-Tejeira, MD, and Geetanjali Rathore, MD, is focusing on efforts such as visibility activities, curriculum improvement, strategic diversity building and preventing and addressing discrimination incidents.
Sharon Stoolman, MD, vice chair for DEI at UNMC pediatrics, said she has noticed progress just over the past year among the students she teaches.
“For M4s, I do a lecture on the social determinants of health,” she said. “For years, I’ve received comments from students such as ‘Thank you so much for giving this lecture, we haven’t had this content in any of our training to this point.’ But just this year, I’m starting to see comments that say, ‘Hey, we had a lecture similar to this. Glad to see we’re having this content on the social determinants of health more than once. We see this as a positive indication that our efforts are coming together.’”
Dr. Stoolman said it was a powerful motivator to know that she isn’t working alone on these issues.
“You can have that racial exhaustion of ‘I can’t be the only one who cares about this,’ so I think it’s really helpful,” she said.
For residents’ education, in addition to increasing lectures that address concepts of advancing health equity in clinical work, case presentations, journal clubs and research, Drs. Stoolman, Abresch and Delair are leading the establishment of a pediatric health equity track for residents who would like more training in academic pediatrics in such areas as community engagement, advocacy, health equity research and more.
For faculty development and to advance learners’ education, the department has hosted guests to address DEI issues during grand rounds, including, most recently, a lunch and learn series on the nuances and use of the terms Hispanic, Latine, Latino, Latina and Latinx.
Shavonne Washington-Krauth, director of culture & inclusion at Children’s Hospital & Medical Center, said she is excited to partner with UNMC pediatrics in their efforts.
“I don’t know if I’ll ever be pleased with where we are, because I always see things we could do, but I think we’re making good progress and I’m told we’re making good progress,” she said.
Washington-Krauth – who oversees diversity and inclusion efforts at Children’s — said she sees promise going forward, and the teamwork with UNMC presents opportunity.
“The opportunity is there for us to make a huge impact,” Washington-Krauth said. “We are the leaders of the work, but this is everybody’s work – everybody has something that they can contribute.”
“We have a lot of work to do and a lot of progress to be made,” Dr. Abresch said. “But I see indications that we are making progress.”