An Institutional Approach to Fostering Inclusion and Addressing Racial Bias: Implications for Diversity in Academic Medicine.
Issue: While an increasingly diverse workforce of clinicians, researchers, and educators will be needed to address the nation's future healthcare challenges, underrepresented in medicine (UIM) perspectives remain relatively absent from academic medicine. Evidence: Prior studies have identified differential experiences within the learning environment, lack of social supports, and implicit bias in evaluations as barriers to the academic interests and successes of UIM learners. The UCSF Differences Matter initiative has shown that interventions focused on recruiting diverse academic faculty, building strong social communities, facilitating cross-cultural communication and understanding, and mitigating disparities in summative assessments can positively affect the educational experience for UIM learners and contribute to their academic success. Implications: Institution-level initiatives are needed to foster a culture of inclusion, teach cultural humility, and build a culture of trust within academic medicine. Such initiatives should aim to teach a common language to discuss diversity issues and place the responsibility of fostering inclusion on all members of the academic community. Our own institutional experience with systemic cultural reform challenges others to develop novel approaches toward fostering inclusion in academic medicine.
['Diaz|Tomas|T|http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5707-0227', 'Navarro|J Renee|JR|http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4241-0262', 'Chen|Esther H|EH|http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4368-9819']
D018864:Cultural Diversity D004501:Education, Medical D005180:Faculty, Medical D006801:Humans D015279:Organizational Culture D063505:Racism D012577:Schools, Medical
inclusion racial bias diversity education implicit bias