Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI): Let’s Move from Pamphlet to Practice

The medical field has an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) problem that is far from subtle. I have noticed it throughout every stage of my training. In my premedical courses, it was a silent force that caused less than a handful of people in the room to be Black. During clinical rotations, it w...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inChicago Policy Review (Online)
Main Author Mathias, Kristen
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Chicago The University of Chicago 06.07.2021
Subjects
African Americans
Brochures
Clinical medicine
Committees
Medical personnel
Medical students
Medicine
Racism
Statistics
Students
Success
Surgery
Transgender persons
Values
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Summary:The medical field has an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) problem that is far from subtle. I have noticed it throughout every stage of my training. In my premedical courses, it was a silent force that caused less than a handful of people in the room to be Black. During clinical rotations, it was a nagging voice in my head, asking if my surgery attending was taking me more seriously than my stellar transgender classmate. Most recently, the problem resurfaced during one of my first rotations as a senior resident. One of my medical students, a Black woman, walked in one morning looking defeated. Ten minutes prior, a nurse had walked in while pre-rounding on a patient and asked the student if she was there to take out the trash. Nearly every institution professes a commitment to the ideals of EDI, touting them on websites and in trainings, and medicine is no different. Despite our widespread adoption of these ideals, there remains a gap in their successful implementation. In 2018, only 10% of practicing physicians in the United States were Hispanic/Latinx, Black, or African American. Furthermore, the number of Black or African American male medical school applicants and students has decreased in the last 30 years. In 2018, nearly 1 out of 4 medical students reported being the subject of sexist remarks and/or names, and a 2017 study revealed that admission committees harbor unconscious biases against homosexual individuals. These sobering statistics likely underestimate the scope of medicine’s EDI problem, as many challenges faced by individuals underrepresented in medicine go unnoticed and undocumented.