Madison Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Diversity at the UW- Madison Department of Family Medicine and Community Health

Mission & Vision | Curriculum Highlights | What We’re Doing

Diversity is integral to the mission and vision of the UW-Madison Department of Family Medicine and Community Health (DFMCH). We partner with the UW School of Medicine and Public Health (SMPH) and UW Health to promote diversity, inclusion and health equity in our own institution. We also collaborate with academic peers nationwide on strategies and models for addressing diversity issues at other institutions.

Since 2015, our department has a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee comprising faculty and staff from the DFMCH, SMPH and UW Health.

Mission & Vision

Our mission: DFMCH’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee exists to promote health equity, diversity and inclusion, and to advise on processes related to recruitment and retention of diverse learners, faculty and staff.

Our vision: To ensure TRUST

T (Tracking)
R (Recruiting)
U (Unlearning and learning)
S (Sustaining and retaining)
T (Training and transformation)

We believe that:

• Social identities such as race, ethnicity, gender, and others are social constructs embedded within a context of unequal power relationships that allow privileged groups to benefit at the expense of marginalized groups.

• Equity assures justice and fairness for all by addressing systemic biases in policies and practices and assures that health equity drives the culture and actions of the department.

• Inclusive practices assure that dominant and privileged voices are decentralized to create full and equal participation and access for all groups.

• Bringing a healing attention first to our own privileges and unconscious biases allows us to mindfully engage in equity and inclusion work while serving as equity and inclusion leaders for the department.

For more information about what our department is doing, check out our DEI website.

Curriculum Highlights

Our residency program is committed to providing education on subjects related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. See some of our curricular highlights below!

PGY-1 seminars

• Toward Health Equity: Beyond Disparities and Race
• Identify, Privilege, and Implicit Bias
• Community health small group sessions using Health Equity Curricular Toolkit

PGY-2/3 seminars

• Cross Cultural Issues
• Interrupting Microaggressions: Acting Our Way Out
• Patient Voices: Hope and Resilience
• Transgender Health
• Rural Health
• Advocacy: Community Engagement and Power

What We’re Doing

Anti-racism Pledge: Recognizing that racism is a public health crisis and that intentional efforts must be made to disrupt the systems that have perpetuated racism, our family medicine residency program has signed the anti-racism pledge developed by Cherry Hill Family Medicine Residency.

Anti-Racism and Advocacy (AREA) Group: This is a resident-led group formed in 2020 that meets about twice per month. The AREA group does educational activities regarding anti-racism and also engages in anti-racism advocacy work-both in the moment advocacy work at their meetings and longer term advocacy in the community.