The TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine received the 2019 Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine, the oldest and largest diversity-focused publication in higher education, the school said in a news release.
As a recipient of the annual Health Professions HEED Award – a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion – TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine will be featured, along with 45 other recipients, in the December 2020 issue of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine.
“As an institution, we work from the paradigm that academic excellence and diversity are inextricably linked,” said Lisa McBride, Ph.D., Assistant Dean of Diversity and Inclusion and Professor of Medical Education at TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine.
“This recognition by INSIGHT Into Diversity is a manifestation of the commitment our Founding Dean Stuart D. Flynn, M.D. made two years ago as a new medical school – with a mission to transform health care by inspiring Empathetic Scholars. Our strategy is to integrate diversity and inclusion in everything we do. It starts with our leadership team, our faculty, our staff and our medical student population.”
INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine selected TCU and UNTHSC School of Medicine because of its efforts to build a diverse faculty and inclusive environment through numerous programs and initiatives for faculty, staff and students.
“The HEED Award process consists of a comprehensive and rigorous application that includes questions relating to the recruitment and retention of students and employees – and best practices for both – continued leadership support for diversity, and other aspects of campus diversity and inclusion,” said Lenore Pearlstein, publisher of INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine.
“We take a detailed approach to reviewing each application in deciding who will be named a HEED Award recipient. Our standards are high, and we look for institutions where diversity and inclusion are woven into the work being done every day across their campus,” Pearlstein said.
Other Texas recipients of the 2020 Health Professions HEED Award are: Texas A&M University – College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences; Texas A&M University College of Dentistry; University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy; University of the Incarnate Word Feik School of Pharmacy; and UT Southwestern Medical Center.
The Fort Worth medical school joined other medical schools across the country in the Time’s UP Healthcare Initiative aimed at ending sexual harassment in health care. The medical school is also a part of the Texas Medical Schools’ Diversity and Inclusion Consortium and The CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion, which is the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion within the workplace.
The Fort Worth medical school was also a part of The Institute on Teaching and Mentoring, which is a four-day conference that has become the largest gathering of minority doctoral scholars in the country.
The medical school also created a six-part Health Disparities Certification Series. The series offered a certificate to the school of medicine by The Center of Excellence on Health Disparities at Morehouse School of Medicine (which was established by Dr. David Satcher, the 16th Surgeon General of the United States), that was given to faculty, staff and partnering physicians from major health systems all across North Texas.
The Fort Worth medical school’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion also launched the Mentoring Matters! networking series designed to create a community that fosters the success of diverse students and faculty in academic medicine. It included a lecture from Antonia Novello, M.D., the 14th U.S. Surgeon General, the first woman and first Hispanic to hold this position, and many other prominent physicians from across the country.
The Fort Worth medical school created the SOM Diversity Committee to develop programs that build and maintain a positive, supportive, and inclusive environment for the school’s faculty, staff, and student populations.
The ongoing training efforts for faculty, staff and students consists of Unconscious Bias Training for Health Professions, Exploring Blind Spots to Build Understanding (Workshop), MED Safe Zone Training and Pronoun Fluency Training.