During the April diversity committee meeting, Department Chair Dr. Gary Desir discussed Yale University’s Belonging At Yale initiative. Infographic posters have been placed around the campus to highlight the various action items for each school. Within the School of Medicine, the first-ever climate survey was administered in November 2021. That data is being analyzed and will be shared at a later date.
The Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Medicine (ODEIM) team and our leadership have been working to identify the areas of improvement within our department. As Dr. Desir mentioned in our meeting, this work has to be a conversation that everyone participates in. We are so grateful for those of you who attended the meeting and we invite all interested parties to join our Diversity Committee.
Data that we can share today include our 2022 match results as they pertain to candidates who are underrepresented in medicine (URiM). As a reminder, the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) definition of URiM includes “those racial and ethnic populations that are underrepresented in the medical profession relative to their numbers in the general population.”
In the traditional track, 22% of residents who matched at Yale are from URiM communities, representing a trend in the right direction. Within the physician-scientist track in the traditional track, unfortunately no URiM residents matched with our program. This is an area for improvement that we are already thinking about for next year. Within the primary care (PC) residency program, 28% of the matched residents are URiM, although all are Latinx. While we have historically had several Black residents match in the PC residency, this year we did not. We are committed to identifying potential barriers and working to ensure that this is not a continued trend.
While there is room for improvement in our URiM match, we are so excited to continue our efforts to ensure that our population of physicians mirrors our patient population as closely as possible. We will continue to highlight all that Yale School of Medicine has to offer to future residents. We will be restarting our recruiting efforts by visiting historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), and plan to also add Native American Serving Non-Tribal Institutions (NASNTIs) as well during the fall.
We are keenly aware that representation in our numbers is only one piece of our broader goals within diversity, equity, and inclusion. We must also look take a critical look at our climate and culture to ensure that each member of our community experiences a sense of belonging regardless of identity or background.
Towards that end, the DEI vice chiefs in each section have been hard at work developing their skills in facilitating educational sessions on bias, microaggressions, and upstander response. We are indebted to Doug McKinley for his continued efforts in providing leadership development to this group.
As a reminder, May is both Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month and Jewish American Heritage Month. We celebrate the wonderfully diverse community of faculty, trainees, and staff who we are lucky to have from these communities in our medical community.
If there are questions about any Department of Medicine diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, or an issue pertaining to DEI across the department for faculty, trainees, or staff, please contact Vandana. If you are a DEI vice chief and have a question or concern, please contact Aba. For GME-related DEI questions, please contact Steve Huot.
For this month’s “Voices of DEI,” we highlight Joshua Onyango, MD. You can read this column on the website and via social media. If you wish to participate as a featured voice of DEI and we welcome all to do so, please complete the survey at this link.
We are excited to partner with each of you on DEI initiatives.
Best wishes,
Vandana Khungar, MD, MSc (interim)
Vice Chief for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion |Digestive Diseases
Associate Professor of Medicine
Aba Black, MD, MHS (interim)
Vice Chief for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion | General Internal Medicine
Assistant Professor of Medicine