Listen, Learn, Lead: Join OSU Resident Physicians in Combating Racism
Just as a picture can be worth a thousand words, a simple date can similarly revive the thousands of feelings we felt after the sun set on that day. For example, December 7th, 1941…September 11, 2001… And most recently, January 21, 2020: the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic to The United States of America.
The dawn of COVID-19 was followed by devastating morbidity, mortality and economic suffering. However, what also followed was the realization that our healthcare system and society continue to be glaringly broken with regard to outcomes in minority communities. Dr. Anthony Fauci recently recognized the addition of COVID-19 to the list of long-standing healthcare disparities that have existed in African-American and other minority populations.
The fact is that African Americans have long been afflicted by a disease more insidious than COVID-19. This disease cannot be isolated, and has evolved without cure for centuries. Its name is systemic racism, and its victims continue to suffer as they have for generations. In the words of Dr. Quinn Capers IV, MD, we now have a “pandemic within a pandemic,” and it has highlighted the fact that racism in itself is a public health crisis.
As you may recall, several victims of racism died during the same timeframe that people were dying from COVID-19. Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old African American man, was shot and killed while out for a jog in his Brunswick, Georgia neighborhood on February 23, 2020. Breonna Taylor, a young African American woman and emergency room technician, was then killed in her sleep in her own apartment by four police officers in Louisville, Kentucky on March 13, 2020. George Floyd, a 46 year-old African-American man was then suffocated to death by a police officer in Minneapolis, Minnesota on May 25, 2020. The gruesome imagery of Officer Chauvin’s knee on Floyd’s neck was forever burned in many of our minds, and it unfortunately joined the overwhelming list of examples of increased police brutality against minority citizens. This string of deaths set in motion the literal and figurative fires of anger and anguish that these dual pandemics created.
As physicians, we must come together and use the fire to ignite the torch of our mission, our Oath to do no harm and serve all people from all walks of life. Our city and our profession are plagued by a history of segregation and implicit bias in finance, housing and healthcare that have unfortunately seeded the foundation of persistent systemic racism.
Yet, the sun is rising on a new era for our city and profession. The Ohio State University and Wexner Medical Center have launched an Anti-Racism Action Plan aimed at the “5 E’s”: elevating the cause, engaging the community with learning opportunities, equipping our team with tools and resources, empowering all people to address racism, and evaluating efforts regularly.
As resident physicians we are empowered by our institution’s leadership to bear our torch to advocate for the health and well-being of our underrepresented minority patients, colleagues and mentees. We are thrilled to announce our campaign housed within our newly formed Graduate Medical Education (GME) IDEA Council (for Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Advocacy), entitled the “Listen. Learn. Lead. Campaign”. Our mission is to unite as physicians to develop a multi-faceted action plan aimed at addressing racial disparities in healthcare for our patients and enhancing diversity, inclusion, and retention in our OSU GME. Each campaign aim consists of various task forces with distinct purposes:
1st Aim: Listen
Purpose: Facilitate the expression and sharing of diverse voices within our institution through forums and art.
2nd Aim: Learn
Purpose: Encourage education around racism in healthcare through medical student and resident lectures and curricula, in collaboration with the Kirwan Institute and other departments of social science at OSU.
3rd Aim: Lead
Purpose: Ensure tangible change occurs as a result of this campaign through the:
Mission & Media Task Force aimed at increasing visibility of our efforts on our GME and program-specific websites.
Mentorship Task Force aimed at fostering mentorship with underrepresented minority students at all levels from grade school to medical school.
Recruitment and Retention Task Force aimed at assessing the current state of diversity and recruitment and retention of diverse trainees at OSUWMC.
Division Pledges Task Force aimed at having each department give lectures on racial disparities in their field, and identifying 1-2 “SMART” goals to address those field-specific disparities.
If nothing else, we hope this sparks interest and creativity in all who have read this, and ask all Central Ohio physicians—especially our fellow trainees—to join us in being the hands and feet of this movement to better serve our patients.
Please contact us at IDEA@osumc.edu at any time to collaborate or share feedback!
