Dear colleagues,
Thank you for joining the Third Annual Fostering Equity and Belonging (FEB) Challenge. We have had ~200 participants each year, from 25 departments at UPSOM and its administrative offices. The offices of Medical Education and Faculty affairs are offering the challenge again, to continue to increase our collective understanding of fostering equity and belonging in our curriculum and learning environment.
This challenge is modelled after the United Way Race Equity Challenge that occurred in 2020.
For our own homegrown challenge, we will offer 12 opportunities for growth in this area and ask faculty to complete the activities at their own pace and participate in our online learning community in Elentra.
The challenge will begin on February 1st and conclude on February 28th, however the materials will remain available afterwards. Following completion of the challenge, each participant who completes the post survey will receive a certificate, which provides an excellent opportunity to highlight your participation in the DEI section on your CV.
The department with the highest percentage of faculty who actively participate (complete at least 10 activities), will receive an award! In addition, two lucky individuals will be selected via a raffle to win either an iPad or an Apple watch.
GETTING STARTED: Welcome to the 28-Day Faculty Education on Fostering Equity and Belonging (FEB) Challenge. Thank you for your commitment to making PittMed a place where all can enjoy full membership and belonging. Register to participate here.
WHY THE CHALLENGE? The learning climate at PittMed is one that we strive to make supportive for all learners to achieve their highest potential. Click here for a brief video describing why the FEB challenge was created in 2022!
WHAT TO EXPECT: You will have 12 opportunities for learning during the month of February, with time for reflection and rejuvenation. Each item will have a short description of the available activities, as well as an estimate of the average time it might take to complete the activity. Though this is a self-paced exercise, you will be in community with your colleagues who are taking this challenge alongside you. The online learning community is an opportunity to connect, discuss and galvanize us to put our learning into action.
WHAT’S NEW THIS YEAR?: We now have the opportunity to earn CME credit! To sign up, register at this link – https://cce.upmc.com/fostering-equity-and-belonging-challenge by March 8th
In support of improving patient care, the University of Pittsburgh is jointly accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME), the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education (ACPE), and the American Nurses Credentialing Center (ANCC), to provide continuing education for the healthcare team.
The University of Pittsburgh designates this blended activity for a maximum of 6.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credit[s]™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.
Other health care professionals will receive a certificate of attendance confirming the number of contact hours commensurate with the extent of participation in this activity.
Special thank you to Michelle Sergent, Maryellen Arendash, Raven Elder for supporting this project with their expertise
There are many ways to embrace and interact with the challenge, including:
LEARN - Read, watch, or listen to the content for the day.
REFLECT - Think about the questions that are offered for self-reflection and note down your responses.
CONNECT - Talk with your colleagues, family, and friends, or post in the Elentra community.
TAKE ACTION – Make a difference that increases belonging in our learning environment.
BEFORE YOU BEGIN: Act: Commit to active participation in the challenge, register and take the pledge.
Item 1: Set the stage: Read “Ted Talks: Learning the Lasso Way” : Learn important skills to build team cohesiveness and belonging with your learners from the fictional Premier League team manager, Ted Lasso. (Reading, 10 minutes)
“What Does It Take To Build A Culture Of Belonging” – Harvard Business Review (reading, 10 minutes)
Reflection:
- Identify one strategy that you feel that you can incorporate in your day-to-day interactions with your colleagues and students.
- What is the team culture you aim to develop?
Item 2: Learn about the Role of Psychological Safety in Clinical Learning – Psychological Safety – A video describing approaches to build psychological safety in medical education. “Psychological safety stems from the work by Amy Edmondson, and refers to a working or learning environment that is safe for expressing vulnerability, sharing perspectives, and taking risks without fear of retribution or humiliation.” (video, 15 minutes).
Reflection:
- When you set expectations with your team, how do you incorporate psychological safety as a goal?
Item 3: Applying Inclusive Teaching Principles to Clinical Education: Five research-based principles aimed towards inclusive teaching. (reading, 20 minutes)
Reflection (from linked article):
- What are my identities and how do others/my trainees perceive me?
- Do I propagate, neutralize, or challenge stereotypes in my clinical practice?
Item 4: Examine the Framework for Deconstructing Sex in Medical Education; the goal of this resource is to facilitate training students in a holistic manner that focuses on the root causes of sex-related differences in medicine
Deeper Dive: Faculty Training on Navigating Gender and Sex in Medical Education – A MedEdPORTAL article describing approaches to minimize gender binary biases in medical education which goes into a deeper dive of how the framework was developed, the data from the research study as well as a PowerPoint of the training materials.
Reflection:
- In considering the areas in which you teach, where can you utilize clarity in your language discussing gender and sex?
- Reflect on your own biases relating to gender identity and expression, where can you actively unlearn these?
Bonus: Complete an Implicit Association Test (IAT) – transgender IAT (interactive test, 20 minutes).
Reflection:
- Were you surprised by your IAT results?
- Do you believe them? What changes do you plan to make due to these results?
Item 5: Trauma informed Medical Education – “Just in TIME: Trauma-Informed Medical Education” – an article describing a model that aims to foster awareness that students and trainees can experience trauma from a biased system and culture and advocates for the establishment of policies and practices that support learners to prevent further re-traumatization (reading, 20 minutes).
Review the Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) Competencies for Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) to develop concrete actions you can incorporate TIME into your role as a medical educator. (reading, 10 minutes)
Bonus** To see the full article, Roadmap for Trauma-Informed Medical Education: Introducing an Essential Competency Set
Reflection:
- What do you think of the concept of trauma informed medical education?
- After reviewing the TIC competencies for UME, how will you incorporate it into your approach as a medical educator?
- Which of the four principles of TIME will you adopt as an individual?
Item 6: Watch Combatting Racism and Place-ism in Medicine. Dr. J. Nwando Olayiwola discusses novel approaches to interrupt racism and place-ism in medicine. (video, 12 minutes)
Reflection:
- Reflect on Pittsburgh, where you live and where you work. Where your patients live and work. How can you incorporate anti-placism into your practice as a clinician and as an educator?
Item 7: Bystander to Upstander Training. Watch Drs. Rickquel Tripp and Emilia Diego discuss how to be an Upstander (video, 20 minutes)
Citation for image - Neves da Silva HV, et al. What Happened and Why: Responding to Racism, Discrimination, and Microaggressions in the Clinical Learning Environment. MedEdPORTAL. 2022;18:11280. https://doi.org/10.15766/mep_2374-8265.11280
Reflection:
- Reflect on your personality and how you react in uncomfortable situations, how will you be an upstander? Commit to a strategy
Item 8: Neuroaffirming Practice
Watch video: Neuroaffirming practice (also known as neurodivergent affirming practice) has been gaining momentum in recent years in healthcare in terms of working with neurodivergent individuals. It's the idea that individuals have differences in their abilities and how they interact with the world around them – differences which are not considered to be deficits that need to be “fixed”. Rather, those who view individuals in this light consider neurodiversity to be natural. (video, 18 minutes).
Read Doctors and Disability: Improving Inclusion in Medical Education - this article highlights best practices for educating medical students to care for individuals with disabilities (article, 20 minutes)
Reflection:
- Moving from the medical model of disability to the social model of disability requires a lot of unlearning, what do you think you need to unlearn?
- Consider taking the Disability IAT
Item 9: Watch video on faculty response to being “called out” (video, 16 minutes). Reflection:
- What is your response to being called out?
- How do you set an environment that allows all members of the team to “call out?”
Item 10: Read Understanding and Countering Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Schools. Islamophobia and antisemitism are taking place in institutions of learning. It is important to be proactive and recognize when this is happening so that we can be UPSTANDERS. (reading, 15 minutes)
Islamophobia killed my brother, lets end hate, Dr. Suzanne Barakat speaks about the challenges of experiencing Islamophobia as a medical resident following the killing of her family in an anti-Muslim hate crime (video, 15 minutes)
Reflection:
- How do your life experiences with religion impact your interaction with others who have religious conflicts within a medical education or clinical context?
- Reflecting back on the UPSTANDER content, what would you say if you were the attending when the patient made discriminatory remarks to Dr. Barakat?
Item 11: Understanding Body Diversity– A PowerPoint developed by Dr. Joy Cox which deconstructs weight bias and begins a discussion about body diversity and acceptance. (reading, 30 mins)
Reflection:
- How can you incorporate Health at Every Size (HAES) into your approach as a medical educator?
Item 12: On socioeconomic status and belonging in medical education
Read essay - Our Souls Look Back and Wonder: Reflections on Belonging and Being Invisible in Medicine (10 minutes)
Read article - The maintenance of classism in medical education: “time” as a form of social capital in first-generation and low-income medical students (20 minutes)
Reflection:
- More than 48% of medical students come from the top income quintile, while less than 6% come from the bottom quintile {(JAMA Netw Open 2022 Mar 15;5(3):e222621. doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.2621)} This is a form of “minoritization.” In what ways could you create an atmosphere of belonging or visibility for individuals from lower socioeconomic status?
Bonus Item: Did you get through all the items in record speed? Learn more about the impact of health care on the climate.