Outreach and Recruitment
Our outreach and recruitment efforts for this academic year are ending. Our academic recruitment season usually runs from March to February. Our three residency training programs within the Department of Medicine are currently conducting interviews for potential interns who will start in June 2025. I am honored to be a part of this process.
Our last big event will occur on February 20, 2025: The YNHH and YSM Diversifying the Healthcare Workforce Dinner. This will be held at the Omni Hotel. We invite underrepresented in medicine (race/ethnicity, first-generation, disabled, from low-income families, and LGBTQ+) candidates who are interviewed for our residency programs to join faculty and residents who are, in most cases, URiM themselves. This is an opportunity for the students to get to know us better and to see our diverse, inclusive, and supportive culture and climate at YNHH and YSM. Student attendance has no bearing on how our programs rank them, as programs will have submitted their final rank lists before the dinner event. It is exclusively geared at allowing students to know us better. We provide travel and accommodation for students who visit from out of state for the event. Several YNHH and YSM leaders will give welcome remarks at the event.
For the ERAS March 2024 results, 36% of URiM interns who matched across all our residency programs at YNHH and YSM attended a similar dinner we held on February 8, 2024. We had 104 students attend that dinner.
Retention
The Department of Medicine held its holiday party Thursday, December 5th. Many sections will also have holiday parties. These parties are opportunities for the department and sections to express their gratitude for all the hard work our staff, trainees, and faculty do all year round to further the Department's mission. The YNHH Minority Housetaff Organization (MHO) will also have a party to celebrate the holidays.
On December 13, 2024, Aba Black, MD, and I will deliver a national webinar to the Health Progressions Group of the Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (ADOHE). This group represents diversity officers in all the health progressions in higher education. The webinar is on DEI-related efforts by faculty and the academic review process in academic health professions institutions. We will be sharing how our innovation, the DEI Productivity Calculator, can contribute to capturing DEI-related efforts, help faculty as a professional development tool, provide a guide to incorporating DEI activities into promotion packets, and potentially help the integration of such efforts into the academic and promotions review process nationwide.
Upcoming Talks
Don’t miss our next Equity Begins with Everyone (EBE) gathering on Monday, December 16, at noon in Fitkin Auditorium and on Zoom. We highly encourage in-person attendance. Our speaker will be Benjamin Mba, MBBS, leading an interactive session on intercultural competency and cultural humility. We will continue our theme of sourcing food from different parts of the world.
Below are some of the secular and religious events during December:
- December 1 – World AIDS Day
- December 2 – International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
- December 3 – UN International Day of Persons with Disabilities
- December 8 – Bodhi Day
- December 20 – International Human Solidarity Day
- December 21 to January 1 – Yule
- December 25 – Christmas
- December 26 – January 1 – Kwanzaa
- December 26 – January 2 – Hanukkah
If you haven’t participated in our monthly column, “Voices of DEI,” please consider doing so. If you wish to be a featured voice of DEI, please complete the survey using this link.
I am committed to supporting and expanding DEI efforts within the Department of Internal Medicine; please join me. Equity begins with everyone. Together, we strive. Together, we rise.
Respectfully Yours,
Benjamin
Benjamin Mba, MBBS, MRCP (UK), CHCQM, FACP
Professor of Medicine
Vice Chair, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for the Department of Internal Medicine
Graduate Medical Education Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion & Associate Designated Institutional Official for Yale New Haven Hospital and Yale School of Medicine