Emergency Medicine
Main ContentDiversity Council
The UMMC Department of Emergency Medicine has established a diversity council to cultivate an environment that recognizes and values diversity and inclusion.
The council's objectives include:
- Providing education and programming that will increase awareness of diversity and inclusion;
- Creating support for an inclusive environment that is welcoming of all students, residents, faculty, staff and patients;
- Increasing the visibility of diversity and inclusion in the department; and
- Developing strategies to recruit and retain underrepresented residents and faculty.
The council's strategies include:
- Creating a departmental policy that emphasizes the department’s commitment to diversity;
- Working with UMMC's chief diversity officer to promote the visibility of diversity efforts;
- Adopting a comprehensive plan for creating a welcoming and supportive training environment for underrepresented residents, students, nurses, faculty, and staff;
- Implementing formal and informal curricular programs that promote discussions and activities about diversity and inclusivity; including:
- Providing voluntary diversity training for all faculty, residents, nurses, and staff, including training on conscious (explicit) and unconscious (implicit) bias;
- Utilizing interprofessional team based learning exercises to demonstrate how to be respectful of the experiences and backgrounds of other team members and patients;
- Working with the education faculty to make diversity an integral part of the medical student and resident curriculum;
- Advocating for changes in programs, policies, and practices to eliminate health care disparities; and
- Encouraging and supporting research aimed at reducing health care disparities.