Medical Education Committee Minutes: April 23, 2002

Cultural Diversity VIG
Attachment A

Information from the dean's office regarding work relating to diversity initiatives: (This information was taken from an email from Dean Baldwin to our office several month ago.)

  • We participated actively through the Dean's Office in the successful recruitment of Gisele Girault, M.D. to the Department of Anesthesiology. Dr. Girualt is the first African-American woman on the DMS faculty and I have met with her a number of times on diversity-related issues since her arrival on the DMS faculty. She has been particularly helpful with the SNMA group and is seen by many African-American students as a wonderful new resource at our medical school. She graciously accepted my appointment of her to the Admissions Committee upon her arrival.
  • As you know, I have committed, after consulting with you, to the appointment of an additional .20 FTE faculty position, with the administrative title of Senior Advising Dean to assist in your office with minority student issues. I expect that this process will be finalized with an appointment within the next few weeks.
  • We have developed the Morehouse School of Medicine/Dartmouth Partnership. This program will provide student and faculty exchange opportunities in diverse communities, and we are actively developing joint research projects with Morehouse.
  • We created the Committee to Expand Clerkship Capacity and Diversity (CECCD).
  • We acquired the clinical elective in Zuni, New Mexico, and I am working hard to sustain this excellent opportunity for our students.
  • We increased Multicultural Affairs Coordinator position from .5 FTE to .75 FTE.
  • I meet upon request and on other occasions with our Student National Medical Association (SNMA) representatives, and I have registered for and will be attending the SNMA National Meeting in March 2002.
  • DMS is directly supporting Dartmouth College undergraduates to attend the national SNMA meeting in March 2002.
  • We have consistently and directly supported the Martin Luther King Day programs at Dartmouth. Moreover, this year DMS is sponsoring the distinguished speaker, Dr. Barbara Ross-Lee, on MLK Day.
  • We have endeavored to create a relatively automatic feed-back loop between the CSPC and the admissions office to help improve the admissions selections process and the prediction of academic difficulties for individual students. I think that we can learn much from this endeavor.
  • We have made a continual effort to promote the recruitment of underrepresented faculty and staff including engagement with The Office of Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity and Ozzie Harris, Special Assistant to the President for Institutional Diversity and Equity. We have given particular attention to the idiosyncrasies of hiring in the clinical departments, where many of the major problems occur. In the year ending 10/0 1/0 1, 16.3 % of the new faculty appointments at DMS were from underrepresented minority groups.
  • I have initiated meetings with Department Chairs to discuss the increased hiring of underrepresented minority faculty, and I stress these issues in basic sciences chairs' meetings and in clinical chairs' meetings, and to search committees on an ongoing basis. We were able to appoint a new African-American faculty member in cardiology in June, and we will appoint another distinguished African-American scholar in the Department of Community and Family Medicine on February 1st, subject to approval by the Board of Trustees. Partial direct support from the Dean's office helped in this latter recruitment, and both appointments reflect the culmination of aggressive recruitments by DMS.
  • We have increased the Multicultural Affairs budget to support cross-cultural student and SNMA travel.
  • Recommendations in last year's MEC (VIG) report were fully endorsed by this office, including offering diversity training for clinical faculty, though I do not think that this latter program has been implemented.
  • Personally, I have assisted individual minority students with their career goals and have represented Dartmouth Medical School at undergraduate institutions around the country that have a higher percentage of underrepresented minorities.
  • Just this week, we were able to bring Dr. Jeral Athone, a native American physician, DMS graduate, and former public health director in Pakistan for the U.N. High Commissioner on Refugees. He is meeting with DC Native American students and DMS students, and he will lecture tonight to the entire Dartmouth community.

We must all work together to make a more welcoming and diverse community, and I know that we can do it. Warmest personal regards as always.

John

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