What Antiracism Efforts at the Brigham Are Inspiring You?
Look Who’s Talking features different voices across the Brigham answering the same question once a month. Inspired by last year’s Brigham magazine story on antiracism efforts at the Brigham, we asked our colleagues to reflect on the progress taking place across the Brigham toward developing a more diverse, equitable and inclusive (DEI) environment for all. What efforts are inspiring you? Submit a comment at the bottom of the page to join the conversation.
“We cultivate a workplace culture that values individual differences and appreciates the diverse skills, backgrounds, perceptions and knowledge faculty, fellows, students and staff bring to our Division. Through investment in an annual undergraduate fellowship program for historically underrepresented backgrounds in medicine, we have also developed a pipeline to increase the diversity of post-doctoral fellows and faculty and continuously aim to improve our work culture of inclusion through engaged learning, collaboration and awareness of DEI topics via guest speakers.” –Theresa Oduol, BS, research assistant, Division of Pharmacoepidemiology and Pharmacoeconomics
“After residents formed a racial justice and health equity committee some years ago, our department created an additional committee for faculty designed to focus on inequities. As with patient safety and medical errors, the more we address structural racism head-on, the more we can avoid perpetuating it.” –Joseph Loscalzo, MD, PhD, physician-in-chief emeritus, Department of Medicine
“Our DEI and Health Equity Team in the BWH Department of Medicine is engaged in a number of innovative strategies to advance antiracism, promote health equity and foster diversity. We are excited to share that all of these efforts are now detailed on our beautiful new website. I hope you will take a look, let us know what you think and consider partnering with us!” –Valerie Stone, MD, MPH, vice chair for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Department of Medicine
“In 2022, MGH and BWH Urology partnered with the United Against Racism initiative at Mass General Brigham to create the Prostate Cancer Outreach Clinic (PCOC). Leveraging the prostate cancer screening safety net at BWH and collaborating with local grassroots organizations, we have now engaged with more than 160 patients from predominantly underserved populations.” –Quoc-Dien Trinh, MD, MBA, co-director of the Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women’s Prostate Cancer Center and director of Ambulatory Clinical Operations in the Division of Urological Surgery
“In partnership with the Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers and the Community Health Center Association of Mississippi, BWH researchers are sharing the antiracism and health lessons from leaders in the community health center movement at https://www.ourhealthstories.org. These leaders’ deep love and commitment to service is a striking part of their motivations and continues to fuel the work they and their families are currently doing.” –Cheryl Clark, MD, associate chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine and Primary Care
“Research and our practice have repeatedly shown that patients with limited-English proficiency and their families have challenges accessing treatment and care, particularly during the pandemic. To address this obstacle, Interpreter Services collaborated with OB/GYN, the Department of Quality and Safety, the operators, the Office of Strategic Communication and LanguageLine Solutions to design a customized program, DirectResponse, that allows discharged patients to call from home, outside of our business hours, to access clinical on-call services. After a five-month pilot with OB/GYN headed by Robert Barbieri, MD, this service is being rolled out to thirty-some on-call services. Call volume is on the rise in nine different languages, including Spanish, Portuguese and more. We firmly believe access to the Brigham’s highest quality of care and treatment is essential to addressing disparities among minorities and people of color.” –Yilu Ma, MS, MA, CMI, director of Interpreter Services
“Our ambulatory nursing leadership meetings and trainings with the diversity, equity and inclusion team inspire us to speak out on the racism we witness in our daily lives and activities. While there is still work to be done, we are making great strides as a hospital.” –Farah Abellard, MSN, RN, regional nurse director, Primary Care Region 1
“At Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center, the racial, equity and social justice mission frames our understanding of the history and current manifestations of structural racism. Thus, it provides the tools to build an antiracist practice. As nurse clinicians, we identify, examine and disrupt systems that perpetuate racism.” –Nadia Raymond, PhD, MSN/MHA, RN, regional nursing director, Southern Jamaica Plain Health Center
“The Brigham created the COVID Recovery Center last year to care for patients with lingering symptoms. Our center’s equity team recognizes that we will only achieve health care justice and antiracism with sustainable intention and investment, ensuring the patients we serve reflect those who have borne a disproportionate burden of this disease.” –Ann-Marcia Tukpah, MD, MPH, clinical fellow, Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine