Resources

"There is no American history without African American history," said Sara Clarke Kaplan, executive director of the Antiracist Research & Policy Center at American University in Washington, D.C. The Black experience, she said, is embedded in "everything we think of as 'American history.'" [Read more]

What is Black History Month?

According to NPR, “It was Carter G. Woodson, the ‘father of Black history,’ who first set out in 1926 to designate a time to promote and educate people about Black history and culture… Woodson envisioned a weeklong celebration to encourage the coordinated teaching of Black history in public schools. He designated the second week of February as Negro History Week and galvanized fellow historians through the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which he founded in 1915.

The idea eventually grew in acceptance, and by the late 1960s, Negro History Week had evolved into what is now known as Black History Month. Protests around racial injustice, inequality and anti-imperialism that were occurring in many parts of the U.S. were pivotal to the change.”

Since 1976, every U.S. president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. Other countries around the world, including Canada and the United Kingdom, also devote a month to celebrating Black history.

Why we celebrate Black History Month

As an academic community wholly committed to reflecting and celebrating diversity, we embrace Black History Month as an opportunity to: educate ourselves and others on the rich cultural heritage, triumphs and adversities of Black and African Americans; ensure a sense of belonging for our Black community members; establish a culture of anti-racism; and move towards justice through our daily work together.

We hope you enjoyed this month’s Black History Month Grand Rounds series, which has been running for three years now. Here are the recordings in case you missed them or would like to revisit!

• Achieving Pharmacoequity: A Prescription for Justice in Health (Utibe Essien)--please do not share this recording outside the internal Stanford DoM community

• Cardiac Amyloidosis: An Underdiagnosed, Not Rare Disease (Kevin Alexander)

• Race, Inequality, and Health in America (Linda Villarosa)

• Striving Towards Health Equity and Justice (Joyce Sackey)

We were looking forward to capping off our month-long celebration with a live performance of West African Dance from Tyre Garrett and the Kuumba Dance Team on February 28th. However, given the inclement weather in the Bay Area, we have opted to reschedule. Please stay tuned for new event details.

What you can do next

• Come to our next 1619 discussion. Details will be posted to our DoM DEI webpage

• Support a Black-owned business

• Mentor someone from the Stanford HBMC Summer Mentorship Program [2022 cohort pictured above]

  • Mentors from all of our divisions/units are most welcome to volunteer; please review the program/dates/logistics/expectations here. If interested, reach out to your division manager or DoM DFA Cathy Garzio (cgarzio@stanford.edu).

• For more actions non-black health care professionals can take, read Everyone Must Address Anti-Black Racism in Health Care.

In solidarity,

Tamara Dunn & Wendy Caceres, Associate Chairs of Diversity & Inclusion

Stephanie Harman, Associate Chair for Women in Medicine

Arghavan Salles, Special Advisor for DEI Programs

“If you want people to thrive and be at their best:

It’s simple.

Create the conditions for belonging.”

-Carin Taylor

You voted and we listened! As we embark on our third year of Inclusion-focused programming, we are thrilled to announce that Inclusion 2023 will be focused on the theme of belonging. We are excited to explore together what belonging means to each of us and shed light on the diverse and shared conditions we need to feel we belong. 

What is belonging? 

“Belonging” is an important way that all people evaluate, interpret, and process their selves, their social communities, and their lived experiences, and it is also a key predictor of professional and academic success. 

Research by Dr. Gregory Walton (Stanford Psychology) has shown that one of the most powerful sources of influence on students’ motivation is their sense of belonging, i.e. “their feeling of membership in the social community and belief that they are valued and respected.” However, this sense of belonging is at risk for individuals from groups that are negatively stereotyped  and/or underrepresented in an academic environment. They reasonably worry about whether they–or people “like me”–will belong. 

This insight led Dr. Walton to develop the social-belonging intervention, which uses information and stories to show that common challenges–like getting criticized, or feeling lonely–are normal experiences that improve with time, and that belonging is a process, not a fixed quality. 

Guided by this understanding of belonging as a process experienced by all people but in very different ways, we will spend 2023 cultivating shared spaces for the exploration of our nuanced perspectives on belonging. 

Announcing our new Community Belonging Spotlight Series–Participate now!

In addition to asking our Inclusion Rounds presenters this year to engage with our annual theme, we are kicking off Inclusion 2023 with a new Community Belonging Spotlight Series, which will feature 2 (faculty/staff/trainee) community members a month. 

We invite written or video recorded responses from DoM community members from across all 14 of our divisions and all of our affiliated organizations to one or more of the prompt questions below: 

1. Share something interesting about your name. 

2. List 3 words that come to mind when you think about belonging.

3. Tell us about a time you felt a sense of belonging in our department.

Short videos recorded on smartphones or Zoom are welcome–no editing required. Community submissions for the current month will be accepted until the end of the third Friday, but also on a rolling basis until all slots for the year are filled. Please direct written and video submissions–and nominations for community members you would like to see spotlighted–to the central communications team at domcentral-comms@stanford.edu. 

We hope you will participate in this new series–the more voices represented, the better!

In solidarity, 

Tamara Dunn & Wendy Caceres, Associate Chairs of Diversity & Inclusion

Stephanie Harman, Associate Chair for Women in Medicine

Arghavan Salles, Special Advisor for DEI Programs

Happy Hispanic Heritage Month!

Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the histories, cultures, and achievements of people whose ancestors come from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, and Central and South America.

The celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month runs from September 15th to October 15th. The month includes many notable dates. September 15th is the independence day for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Hispanic Heritage Month encompasses Mexico’s and Chile’s independence days as well, on September 16 and September 18, respectively.

We have several Department of Medicine events organized in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month:

 More 

●      On September 21st, Monica Vela, MD, FACP, Professor of Medicine in the Departments of Medicine and of Medical Education and Director of the Hispanic Center of Excellence at University of Illinois College of Medicine, gave a powerful talk about structural violence against Hispanics in the United States, including the ongoing trauma of deportation and inequitable outcomes for patients with limited English proficiency. You can watch her talk here.

●      On September 28th, Elena Rios, MD, MSPH, MACP, President and CEO of the National Hispanic Medical Association (NHMA), will speak about future directions for Latino health, which you can attend via Zoom or in person in Li Ka Shing Center Room 120.

●      On October 11th, Ensemble Folclórico Colibrí will give a live performance in Grant Courtyard in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month and National Coming Out Day. Ensemble Folclórico Colibrí promotes the pride of identifying as an LGBTQ+ Latinx through the art of Mexican Folklórico dance.

Please join us in celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month!

Wendy Caceres and Tamara Dunn

Associate Chairs – Diversity and Inclusion

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We have entered the month of May, more than a year into the COVID pandemic, and almost a year since the murder of George Floyd. Floyd’s murder rocked our nation’s consciousness, illuminating the disproportionate violence towards communities of color and highlighting the insidious ways that this violence affects those communities daily. Since we last wrote, a guilty verdict was reached in the trial of Derek Chauvin. The trial and verdict produced a wide range of emotions. We personally realized how conditioned we had become to our communities being disparaged without accountability, since we were so worried the outcome would be different. In some ways this feeling is still part of the reality, as we witness ongoing attacks on individuals and communities for who they are.

Meanwhile, we continue to battle COVID, and we are actively working to ensure our communities are vaccinated. Many of you have volunteered your time and energy to help the Ravenswood clinic (and others) get our local community vaccinated. In an effort to combat vaccine hesitancy across multiple groups, members of our department have filmed short Public Service Announcements which have just been released and are being disseminated widely. If you are interested in being part of this effort, please contact us.

We hope you were able to attend this month’s faculty meeting where our chair, Bob Harrington, reviewed the department’s efforts in diversity, equity, and inclusion. Inclusion 2021 is well underway, and we would like to introduce to you a new forum we are starting called “Inclusion Rounds.” These will occur periodically throughout the year.

The first session will be held on May 13 at noon and will feature Dr. Jennifer Young from the Stanford Center for Biomedical Ethics, who will review the history of anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. and will outline steps to take to combat anti-Asian hate. The session will be moderated by our colleague Dr. Joy Wu. We’ll hold another Inclusion Rounds in June on anti-Black Racism and the history of Juneteenth.

The larger Medical Grand Rounds series will also continue to bring a focus to inclusion, with Drs. Latha Palaniappan and Bryant Lin kicking off Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month this week and Dr. Mitch Lunn and his colleague Dr. Juno Obedin-Maliver speaking about LGBTQ+ health during the June PRIDE month.

One other notable event will take place this month: The 4^th Annual Diversity and Inclusion Forum, which will be held on Friday, May 21 from 8 a.m. – 1 p.m. This forum will showcase the workshops of the LEAD scholars, some of whom are trainees from the department.

We’re also including a request for a voluntary survey by our colleagues in Ophthalmology, led by Dr. Caroline Fisher. This survey seeks to understand the use of language and terminology around diversity, equity, and inclusion among medical school faculty. You can participate here.

Thank you as always for your engagement and please join us as we continue to celebrate diversity, inclusion, and equity in all forms.

Wendy Caceres and Tamara Dunn

Associate Chairs – Diversity and Inclusion

At its heart, respect for diversity in our workplace is respect for humanity. While we strive to find ways to incorporate anti-racism in our daily lives, we are constantly reminded of the  presence of racism in our society, most recently through the rise of anti-AAPI (Asian American and Pacific Islander) violence in our country.  From the horrific fatal shootings in Atlanta to the unthinkable violent attacks against elders in our own Bay Area, we are saddened and sickened by these displays of hate.  

We have been deeply affected by the stories we have heard. The pain of the recent attacks runs deep, directly impacting members of our department and instilling fear in the broader AAPI community.  

Unfortunately, anti-AAPI racism is not new, and these attacks remind communities of past traumas and a lifetime of being targeted because of who they are. Our country has long tolerated anti-Asian biases, which have been exacerbated recently by the irresponsible rhetoric of some people in positions of power, as documented by a 2000% increase in anti-Asian hate crimes in the last year alone.

We both know this pain. On the national stage, we have also witnessed the dehumanizing mistreatment, beating, and killing of people who look like us. We stand with our colleagues in these painful moments, hoping that we can all move together toward a state where common respect for the humanity in each of us helps us see the “other” as “us.” The pandemic has revealed many painful realities but underscoring it all is our deep interconnectedness. To our AAPI colleagues: we see you, we hear you, and we support you.

We thank our colleagues who have spoken up and shared their stories: Joy Wu, Joseph Wu, Sean Wu, Linda Nguyen, Stephanie Harman and many others, and hope you all have an opportunity to join our department in a Grand Rounds on April 14, 2021 to hear Michael Lu, MD, MS, MPH  Dean of UC Berkeley School of Public Health speaking on taking a stand against Anti-Asian Racism. Below is an excerpt of a statement that Joy Wu, Joseph Wu, Sean Wu have already shared with the cardiovascular institute:

“As we became a part of the medical and research profession, the sense of alienation was reinforced by being told constantly by our patients, our professors, our classmates, our colleagues: “You all look alike,” “you are too quiet,” “your English is pretty good,” - reminders that we never fully belong. These near-universal experiences of racism by us and our AAPI peers growing up in the US have unfortunately remained for far longer than they should.

For all of AAPI students, staff, faculty, we want you to know that we are here for you and to support you during this most difficulty time. We understand your fears and your frustrations and want you to know that you have allies here at Stanford who will help you with what you need. For our non-Asian colleagues who are willing to take a stand against anti-Asian hate and violence, we ask that you reach out to your friends in the AAPI community and let them know that you are thinking about them and are willing to help with their needs, contact your government officials and ask them what they are doing to support the AAPI community right now, and to call out racism and stop it anytime you see it happening to make it known that anti-Asian racism is not tolerated by anyone, whether or not s/he is a member of the AAPI community.”

Please be on the lookout for a fireside chat to further discuss the events in the AAPI community.

And as always, a list of resources:

Report a hate crime

         Off-Campus:

        https://stopaapihate.org/

        https://stopaapihate.org/

        On-Campus: Acts of Intolerance

Counseling:

            CAPS – Talk with a Psychologist

            Well-Being @Stanford – Talk with a well-being coach

            Bridge Peer Counseling – 24/7 peer support counseling and support on the phone

            Grieving at Stanford

Sexual Harassment/Assault Response  Education – Talk with staff members who are professionally trained in matters related to sexual violence, stalking, sexual harassment, gender-based discrimination, positive sexuality and health relationships.

General Resources:

Harassment & Hate towards Asians, Asian Americans, and Pacific Islanders during COVID-19

President Biden’s Memorandum Condemning and Combating Racism and Xenophobia, and Intolerance against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders

Anti-Asian Violence Resources

National Asian Pacific American Bar Association Hate Crime Resources

Movement Hub: Created to amplify on-the-ground activism and organizing within the AAPI communities across the country

Stanford Medicine Stop Asian Hate Town Hall

Stand with Asian Americans: A commitment from Asian American business leaders to donate $10M to combat Anti-Asian violence and racism

Wendy Caceres and Tamara Dunn

Associate Chairs – Diversity and Inclusion

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February 2, 2021

Happy Black History Month! As we acknowledge that Black history is important to our nation’s narrative on a daily basis, we also want to celebrate during this month (established in 1976) that commemorates the many African-American stories and voices that have enriched our country’s history. Too often these stories and voices have been stifled or silenced by the structural racism that is a direct consequence of slavery. We want to give voice to the Black community that has been marginalized and create an anti-racist community.

Please join us for February Grand Rounds where we will honor Black History Month by welcoming all Black speakers. This month we are thrilled to have Michelle Albert, Quinn Capers, Carla Pugh (along with panelists), and Rhea Boyd presenting. This is the perfect segue to our yearlong commitment to diversity, and only the beginning of our efforts; we are not limiting Black speakers to February alone. As Bob mentioned in his recent message our department’s diversity and inclusion efforts will be showcased year round. So stay tuned!

Part of the journey to anti-racism involves educating ourselves about our real history. The history most of us learned growing up was incomplete, and unfortunately even in medical school there are often glaring omissions. To begin to remedy this, we invite you to educate yourself. Last month we recommended Caste: The Origins of our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson. If you haven’t had a chance to read this important book, put it on your list! And this month, we’d like to share a few more resources:

·      1619 is a podcast that looks at our country’s history through the context of slavery and reports on the many contributions of Black Americans.

·      The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a powerful book that investigates the ethics of race and class in medical research.

·      The Stanford Center for Racial Justice hosts Tuesday Race Talks, a presentation that explores current issues related to race and racism. View upcoming events here.

·      Finally, we encourage you to join the Department of Radiology’s four-month Racial Equity Challenge. Participants will be provided with a list of resources on topics like implicit bias and systemic racism and will be challenged to engage with several of these sources each month. They will then share what they’ve learned in a monthly discussion group. You can sign up to join here and you can view the monthly discussion group schedule below.

• • Friday, March 5, 12-1pm – Groundwork: Defining “Racism;” How to Talk About Race and Racism
  • Friday, April 2, 12-1pm — Race and Power in our Individual Interactions: Microaggressions & Tone Policing
  • Friday, April 30, 12-1pm – Race in Society: Police Brutality, Affirmative Action, & the School-to-Prison Pipeline

o   Zoom information: https://stanford.zoom.us/j/99434596610?pwd=VWFYcG5BQlp3S3R6aElvWVJpV2dOQT09

Meeting ID: 994 3459 6610 

Password: 506779

Thank you, and we hope you have a great February!

- Wendy & Tamara

January 19, 2021

Colleagues - 

As we honor Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy this week, we thought it would be a perfect time to introduce ourselves and this corner to you, and to reflect on the America Dr. King envisioned. I’m Tamara Dunn, an Assistant Clinical Professor and Program Director of the Hematology Fellowship, and I’m Wendy Caceres, an Assistant Clinical Professor and Associate Program Director of the Internal Medicine Residency. We are the newly appointed Associate Chairs for Diversity and Inclusion in the Department of Medicine and together we are committed to ensuring that our community remains supportive and inclusive. We also want to be intentional about helping establish an anti-racist environment.

We know many of you were horrified, appalled, and galvanized to action after witnessing yet more murders of unarmed Black people in our country this past year, as well as the stark disparities in COVID-19 mortality rates. We also know that the insurrection at the capitol on January 6th was a devastating blow to our democracy and further exposed the deep divisions in our country. We are part of a profession that is committed to the health of all our patients and to do no harm or injustice. In the spirit of lifelong learning, we will regularly share recommendations on readings and events so you can join us and others in the conversations that will help propel us towards the goals of equity and inclusion.

With that in mind, we welcome you to explore the resources at the Martin Luther King Jr Research and Education Institute right here at Stanford. There you will find The King Papers among other initiatives and research supported by the Institute. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/

We also invite you to read Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson, which provides an important analysis that contextualizes the current plight of Black people in our country, including the role of slavery. Ms. Wilkerson will be coming to Stanford on January 28, 2021. https://cardinalservice.stanford.edu/opportunities/transcending-caste-isabel-wilkerson

Also on January 28, 2021, Stanford will host the 14th Annual Clinical Excellence Summit with the theme of “Bridging for Health Equity” led by our very own Megan Mahoney, Chief of Staff at Stanford Health Care. The keynote speaker will be Dr. Rhea Boyd, MD, MPH, (@RheaBoydMD) who is a former Stanford trainee, adjunct faculty, and active social justice scholar as the Director of Equity and Justice at The California Children’s Trust. She will discuss the “The Antiracist Imperative for Clinical Excellence.” You can register here: https://stanford.cloud-cme.com/course/courseoverview?p=3000&eid=39125&autosend=true

We choose to focus on the hope that this week brings, including the inauguration of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris this Wednesday – the first time a Black/South Asian woman will hold the office of Vice President. We choose to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the tremendous contributions he made to the country and the entire world and continue his legacy. Please join us.

Tamara Dunn and Wendy Caceres