Diversity and Inclusion

The Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee was formally formed in the Summer of 2020 in response to the nationwide outrage with current events including the death of George Floyd. Although our department has always had a strong commitment to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion, we felt that it is important to formally include education and activities for our residents and faculty. Our DEI Committee has been extremely active in this short period of time and have promoted and supported the following events:

• A community “Round-Table” that included residents, faculty, community members and leaders including Charlotte City Council leaders, Atrium Health administrators, and resident applicants discussing race in medicine.
• A book club discussing “Medical Apartheid” by Harriet Washington, specifically looking at the works of Dr. Sims who played a large part in the development of Obstetric practices with atrocious practices on women of color.
• A donation drive to Florence Crittenton, an organization that is dedicated to serving pregnant women and teenage women who have social needs and unstable housing (with partnership with the Internal Medicine Department)
• Education during resident didactics on the contributions of people of color to Obstetrics
• We are working on a DEI curriculum with our medical students and developing an acting intern rotation that focuses on DEI
• We had a focus on microaggressions and confronting them during one of our MMI conferences