Departmental Development

  • DFMCH Mentorship Toolkit: Developed to support mentorship across faculty tracks and staff roles, encouraging diversity within the department and beyond.
  • Diversity Dashboard: Created to monitor diversity, inclusion, and health equity across leadership, recruitment, faculty development, and training opportunities.
  • Implicit bias training: Partnered with UW-Madison Women in Science and Engineering Leadership Institute (WISELI) to expand training on racial and gender bias, initiating a workshop in November 2015 that continues to educate locally and nationally.
  • Strategies to increase completion of exit interviews: Implemented to enhance understanding of staff turnover and improve retention practices.
  • Racial affinity caucusing sessions: Organized caucuses in which department members had the opportunity to work within their own racial/ethnic groups to explore racial and ethnic experiences, fostering deeper understanding and promoting anti-racist practices.

Medical Student Education

  • Partnered with colleagues in the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH), to teach the elective course “Health Care in Diverse Communities.”

Resident Education

  • DFMCH faculty and staff teach a longitudinal health equity seminar series for residents in the department. The series focuses on health disparities and issues of structural competency: racism, privilege, intersectionality and resilience.
  • DFMCH residents engage in community health learning experiences, applying an equity and empowerment lens with support from the Office of Community Health and faculty mentors.
  • DFMCH partnered with UW SMPH’s Diversity and Inclusion Advocates Program in an effort to train faculty and administrators to broaden the applicant pool and ensure fair evaluation criteria, fostering inclusivity at SMPH.
  • DFMCH collaborates closely with SMPH’s Center for Collaborative Health Equity, advancing initiatives to improve health equity in Wisconsin’s underserved areas through education, research, and community partnerships.

History

After learning about local disparities reported in the Race to Equity report by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families in October 2013, and after admitting a residency class lacking any people of color, the DFMCH began intentionally focusing on efforts to address issues of diversity, inclusion, and health equity.

From October 2014 through March 2015, the DFMCH sponsored the 2020 Initiative, an effort to engage our statewide department on issues of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Our objectives were to:

  • Increase awareness of diversity issues in our geographical community, patient populations, and department
  • Identify and prioritize potential interventions that can increase department responsiveness to diversity issues
  • Develop a strategy that assures a departmental commitment to health equity, diversity and inclusion

Identifying Gaps

We conducted a comprehensive cultural climate survey across the department, drawing from the Ring, J. Nyquist, J. et al. (2008) guide on culturally responsive health care and included evolving demographic data comparing our state and department to national trends from AAMC, as well as findings from our survey and local community disparity data,  including the Race to Equity Project report and presentation (October 2013) and the Annie E. Casey Foundation Race for Results.

Considering Best Practices

In 2014, we conducted sessions with residency faculty and with community physicians, APPs and clinic managers. These sessions introduced best practices in diversity and health equity, utilizing an equity and empowerment lens toolkit from Multnomah County, OR, and resources from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The initiative aimed to provide guidance on integrating these practices into departmental operations.

Brainstorming Strategic Intention

In 2014, we brought in professional facilitators to assist members from across the statewide department to brainstorm a strategy to address issues of diversity, inclusion and health equity across the educational, research and clinical arms of our department.

Developing Institutional Structure

In the spring of 2015, we developed a proposal for Phase 2 “Action Plan” that included creating a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee which was convened in the summer of 2015.

Our Charge

In 2020 Interim-Chair, Dr. William Schwab, charged the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee to lead anti-racism and social justice efforts within the department. This involved making recommendations to advance understanding of personal and structural racism, and implementing changes in collaboration with the DFMCH Executive Team and community input.

The initiative aimed to foster inward-facing anti-racism efforts, promoting cultural humility, empowering BIPOC individuals, and encouraging white allies to mentor and lead anti-racism efforts. Outward-facing goals included systemic anti-racism and health equity work across recruitment, retention, selection practices, research engagement, clinical improvements, educational curriculum, and accountability through a DEI dashboard.

In 2024, UW Health assigned a DEI Manager to our department, in an effort to continue DEI initiatives. More information on current DEI work throughout the UW-School of Medicine and Public Health can be found on the SMPH website.