What Diversity Means to Us
At Kaiser Permanente, we value the collaboration and respect between individuals that make us stronger, and we cherish the differences that make us richer. Diversity, inclusion, and culturally competent medical care are defining characteristics of Kaiser Permanente’s past, present, and future. Our Diversity and Inclusion Committee is dedicated to recruiting, developing, and retaining emergency medicine residents who are committed to eagerly serving our diverse patient population of Northern California.
Culturally Competent Curriculum
We have dedicated DEI faculty who are tasked with increasing the number of didactic hours dedicated to relevant topics. Over the last year, there have been exercises focused on cultural competency training including workshops with discussions centered on unconscious biases in provision of care and how to evolve our heuristics. We have had lectures on historical instances of discrimination in care (e.g. forced sterilization of minority women, HeLa cell line controversy, Tuskegee study, etc.). Most recently, we developed our own SIM case where residents had to demonstrate culturally competent care to the transgender population.
Active Recruitment
We have participated in several pipeline programs for Underrepresented Minority (URM) students in the Central Valley and our several of our faculty members and residents are offering mentorship for URM medical students. More specifically this year, our recruitment committee plan to develop a formal rubric by which we aim to focus our resident selection to include a targeted selection of URM and female applicants. Our DEI lead also works with SAEM and our own KPSOM who put us in touch with medical students and potential residents who are interested in serving our communities.
DEI Philosophy
Our mission statement emphasizes two core principles of the DEI philosophy which are essentially acknowledgements of both the importance of social determinants of health and also the reality that a diverse physician population treating an equally diverse patient populations leads to better healthcare outcomes. During interviews, we aim to align diverse faculty members to evaluate equally diverse candidates holistically, seeking those who share our values of inclusivity. This commitment extends to our resident activities which encompass cultural understanding workshops, discussions, and targeted didactics in the hopes of shaping future emergency medicine leaders to forge an equitable and inclusive healthcare system.
