A monthly webinar series that brings in experts from across academic medicine to help you: 

Building an Insurer-Driven, Performance-Based LGBTQ+ Provider Directory | View Recording (registration required)

Finding providers who are able to treat LGBTQ+ individuals seeking healthcare with dignity and respect is a paramount priority for LGBTQ+ patients. Close to 10 percent of LGBTQ+ patients and over 20% of transgender patients report harsh or abusive language when receiving treatment, and nearly as many have been refused care due to sexual orientation or gender identity. These experiences discourage LGBTQ+ patients from seeking healthcare. Many have sought to address this gap by creating LGBTQ+ provider directories connecting LGBTQ+ patients to non-discriminatory providers.

While provider directories are an efficient way to connect LGBTQ+ patients to providers, there are several challenges: directories are often opt-in, relying on provider attestation of their care for LGBTQ+ patients; directories may not distinguish between clinical ability to provide LGBTQ+ specific healthcare versus “friendliness” towards LGBTQ+ patients; oversight and monitoring of directory quality and patient complaints is lacking; and directories often don’t interface with healthcare systems, including insurance coverage and quality monitoring. 

The UPMC Health Plan sought to address these concerns by launching the UPMC LGBTQ+ Affirming Provider directory in June 2022, an accredited, opt-in, training-based provider directory allowing LGBTQ+ patients to identify providers who can validate the LGBTQ+ patient experience and create a safe and welcoming patient-provider relationship. This webinar will review the 1-year impact and initial positive feedback of this designation as well as the value and best practices of LGBTQ+ provider directories.  

By the end of this presentation, attendees should be able to:
1.    Discuss operationalization of “affirming provider” in educational training
2.    Identify 3 benefits and challenges to having an insurer-led LGBTQ+ provider directory
3.    Discuss strategies for quality monitoring and improvement in an LGBTQ+ provider directory

Addressing LGBTQIA+ Health in Academic Medicine | View Recording (registration required)

During today’s webinar, Drs. Kristen Eckstrand and Jennifer Potter will begin by discussing the impact of recent anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation on the health and safety of LGBTQ+ individuals and communities. 

The speakers will then provide an analysis of the opportunities and strategies that professionals in the academic medicine community can deploy to oppose harmful legislation and continue to be a national leader in advancing LGBTQ+ health equity. 

Learning Objectives: 
•    Describe the dramatic upward trend in anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation during the past 5 years.
•    Discuss the impact of anti-LGBTQIA+ legislation on the health and safety of LGBTQ+ people
•    Analyze opportunities for academic medicine to continue to serve as a national leader in advancing methodologies to describe and respond to the needs of LGBTQIA+ communities and disseminating evidence-based scientific information to the general public.

Culturally-Responsive Support For Medical Student Mental Health | View Recording (registration required)

In recent years, there has been an increased awareness of the mental health challenges faced by many medical students. Stressors include academic workload, competition with peers, work-life balance, family demands, financial obligations, and emotionally taxing experiences. 

Medical students overall demonstrate higher rates of depression, suicidal ideation, and stigmatization around depression compared to the overall population, and are often less likely to seek support. Furthermore, the Covid-19 era has ushered in a new norm of uncertainty that may have contributed to increases in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) and depression among medical students, with disparate impacts on students underrepresented in medicine.  

This webinar highlights the critical need to share effectual strategies to address medical students' mental health. Mental health practitioners will present culturally-responsive approaches and insights to support students, focusing on marginalized identities. The discussion will also address common barriers and emphasize the significance of early interventions, diagnoses, and continuous support to enhance academic success. 


This webinar is designed to support administrators and student service providers with:
1.    Strategies to better assess and identify when students are presenting with mental illness.
2.    Insight into common barriers to providing specialized mental health care and pathways for overcoming them.
3.    Practical examples of institutions implementing effective student mental health programs.


Using Inclusive Language in Scholarly Writing: A Roundtable Discussion | View Recording (registration required)

This webinar will provide information and guidance on the use of language that is inclusive and accurate in its depiction of identity, lived experiences, health and well-being, and health outcomes. Panelists will discuss the principles of using inclusive language across their roles as scholars, authors, reviewers, and editors and offer practical strategies for writing that aligns with inclusive language best practices and welcomes the diversity of all people and their identities. Note: This webinar is open to all who are interested in attending but will address inclusive language in the context of its use in the United States.

This webinar is a collaboration between the Scholarly Publishing Webinar Series and the IDEAS Learning Series.

Creating an Inclusive Academic Environment: Exploring Appreciative Inquiry in Advising | View Recording (registration required)

Advising inclusively is essential for ensuring all medical students access relevant and supportive career advising. Appreciative advising is an approach that considers six advising phases: Disarm, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver, and Don’t Settle. Appreciative advising guides advisors to create a space for advisees to explore all their career options and find a specialty and residency program that meets their careers goals. Advisors viewing this webinar will be able to Identify the basic principles of inclusive advising and incorporate those techniques into their advising meetings with students. 

Advising inclusively helps ensure all medical students seek and access career advising; limits bias--whether related to implicit biases about personal characteristics or specialty stereotypes--in advising conversations; signals to students they are welcome and supported in the medical profession; and creates space for students to fully explore, identify, and pursue the specialty and career options that ultimately lead to career satisfaction and support well-being.


My Journey to Discover Why African Americans Live Sicker and Die Younger | View Recording (registration required)

More than three decades ago, Dr. Thomas A. LaVeist learned that there were race disparities in health. Today that fact is common knowledge, but it was less common then. He wondered why these disparities existed and sought answers in the research literature. Surprised by the lack of satisfying answers, he devoted his career to finding one. In this session, Dr. LaVeist shares his insights. 

Becoming Active Bystanders and Advocates: Teaching Medical Students to Respond to Bias in the Clinical Setting | View Recording (registration required)

Incidents of bias and microaggressions are prevalent in the clinical setting and are disproportionately experienced by racial minorities, women, and medical students. These incidents contribute to burnout. This recording provided an overview of a workshop developed at Vanderbilt School of Medicine that teaches medical students a framework to respond to incidents of bias. The facilitator guide and relevant workshop/course materials are freely available from the AAMC MedEdPORTAL collection to aid in the implementation of this model at other institutions.

Disrupting Bullying in Academic Medicine | View Recording (registration required)

While academic medicine encourages teamwork, empathy and altruism, a culture of incivility persists that permits workplace bullying. Bullying involves offenders abusing authority positions and targeting individuals in order to impede their education or career growth. Bullying also affects patient care and causes some individuals to leave the workforce. This webinar will help participants/organizations recognize workforce bullying and discuss tools to disrupt this uncivil behavior.

Transforming Medical Education to Advance Equity and Inclusion | View Recording (registration required)

This video features institutions that are transforming medical education to advance racial equity and create inclusive learning environments. Within the transformational learning framework, medical students, residents, faculty, and staff are challenged to question, criticize, and self-reflect on the inequitable experiences of people within our shared community. This discussion will features senior leadership perspectives and highlight creative approaches to promote equity and inclusion within medical schools. This webinar is presented in partnership with Black in Anatomy – an organization dedicated to creating a safe space to network, uplift, support, and amplify Black contributions to anatomical science.
 

Addressing Microaggressions in Academic Health: A Workshop for Inclusive Excellence | View Recording (registration required)

Health profession schools have acknowledged the need for a diverse workforce by increasing diversity in recruitment, but little has been done to build inclusive excellence in learning environments. Microaggressions and other forms of mistreatment can increase stress levels and depression and negatively impact academic performance. To increase student performance, retention, and wellness, mitigating microaggressions is needed to promote an inclusive culture. The facilitator guide and relevant workshop/course materials are freely available from the AAMC MedEdPORTAL collection to aid in the implementation of this model at other institutions.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Competencies Across the Learning Continuum | View Recording (registration required)

This video includes a brief review of the new AAMC competencies and the longitudinal and inclusive process to develop them. A panel discussed common challenges and exemplary curricula in competency-based education as it relates to diversity, equity, inclusion and anti-racism.

• Describe the newly released Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) competencies for students, residents, and faculty with a specific focus on some of the less understood concepts;
• Review exemplary curricula and educational practices designed to address racism in medical education; and
• Identify practical strategies to use the DEI competencies to identify gaps in local curricula and educational programs.

Understanding and Addressing Sexual Harassment in Academic Medicine: A New AAMC Report | View Recording (registration required)

This webinar provides an in-depth look at the results from the AAMC's recent publication, Understanding and Addressing Sexual Harassment in Academic Medicine. This webinar will include never-before-seen rates of harassment among faculty across multiple institutions, connections between harassment and engagement and retention, as well as innovative practices to address and prevent harassment from nine qualitative institutional interviews. This report and webinar focuses on gender harassment, the most prevalent but often overlooked, among faculty and explores institutional interventions to prevent these behaviors before they even begin.


Using Inclusive Language in Scholarly Writing | View Recording (registration required)

This video provides a primer for educational scholars who aspire to communication, specifically writing, that is free from bias, inclusive, and accurate in its depiction of identity, health, and risk. Speakers will discuss the principles of using inclusive language across their roles as educators, clinicians, health professions education scholars, and journal reviewers and editors. Speakers also shared available resources and practical strategies that scholars can adopt to align their writing with current best practices around the intentional use of words and descriptors that welcome the diversity of all people and their identities. This webinar concluded with interactive case studies for attendees to practice what they have learned.

Improving the Learning Environment for LGBTQ+ Medical Students | View Recording (registration required)

Due to persistent LGBTQ+ health disparities and negative interactions with the healthcare system, there is significant focus on improving medical education curricula to train medical students and health systems to better care for LGBTQ+ patients. While we focus on improving the experience of LGBTQ+ patients in an inequitable system, less attention has been paid to the experience of LGBTQ+ medical students learning in that same system. The medical school learning environment impacts student's mental health, academic performance, and quality of life. Ensuring an equitable learning environment is critical for the recruitment and retention of diverse students, and student wellbeing.

In this webinar, presenters will discussed current knowledge and gaps about how the medical school learning environment impacts LGBTQ+ medical students. Further, presenters highlighted practices that faculty and leadership at medical schools can employ to improve the learning environment for LGBTQ+ medical students.

Whereas racist research historically has posed the question, “What is wrong with people?” antiracist research asks “What is wrong with policies and systems?” Framing research on race and racism around antiracist questions leads to antiracist narratives, effective policy solutions, and impactful programming that cuts to the root of racial inequality. All researchers can play important roles in shifting the culture of academic medicine to intentionally implement equitable and inclusive policies, set norms for acceptable workplace conduct, develop accurate antiracist curricula, and provide equitable opportunities for mentorship and networking.  

During this session, presenter will discuss how the academic research agenda can be used to promote equity, inclusion, and antiracism. Presenters will highlight promising practices that leaders and researchers can employ to build an antiracist research agenda in medical education as well as the benefits of this work.