Dr. Bryant Delivers First Leon Haley Jr. Lecture at ACEP22
Engaging in diversity through casual settings beyond the workplace.
On Oct. 1, the first-ever Leon L. Haley, Jr. lecture featured Vonzella Bryant, MD, FACEP, who took the stage to outline patient and leadership perspectives on diversity and inclusion.
In her own experience, a broad-based diversity effort can include a focus on inclusive practices, implicit bias training and a holistic review that does not include a United State Medical License Exam (USMLE) score cutoff. By focusing on these efforts, she noted that her own program was able to increase diverse residents from 10 percent to 25 percent in four to five years.
Dr. Bryant also highlighted the work of Boston Medical Center’s Health Equity Accelerator, an effort that is ”transforming health care to deliver health justice and wellbeing,” she said.
She encouraged a motivated room to be an ally by listening and learning from experiences gained and engaging in diversity through more casual settings beyond the workplace. She challenged the crowd to be more intentional in their interactions with patients and colleagues.
“Having a diverse workplace will help patients trust us,” Dr. Bryant said. “A more diverse workplace can positively impact patient care and patient satisfaction. Leaders need to buy in.”
Dr. Bryant noted that the pandemic helped illuminate challenges and opportunities to improve the care provided to patients in diverse communities.
She encouraged programs to find opportunities to share the tools that care teams can use to raise awareness and facilitate conversations, including hosting microaggression workshops, talking about bias, prioritizing inclusive recruitment and implementing best practices.
“We need representation,” she said. “It’s important for health care professionals and patients to see and normalize seeing black doctors helping people.”
The Leon Haley, Jr. Lecture: Leon Haley, Jr., MD, MHSA, FACEP, was the first black CEO of University of Florida Health Jacksonville and established the inaugural Associate Dean for Inclusion and Equity position at UFCOM-Jacksonville, working with this team on diversity, inclusion and equity matters. An extraordinary leader committed to bettering his community, Dr. Haley dedicated his life to helping people and made remarkable strides in patient care, wait times and many other administrative and clinical aspects. He was a public servant to those most in need and built bridges to close the gaps in health disparities and help cultivate an inclusive culture where everyone has the opportunity to reach their potential. Dr. Haley’s dedication to the specialty, his patients, colleagues and community and his lasting effects on the College have earned him the recognition of the Leon Haley, Jr. Lecture. The selection of the Leon Haley, Jr. Lecture is based on the importance of the topic to the specialty of emergency medicine in advancing efforts on diversity, inclusion and health disparity and equity.
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