At LAG+USC our heart centers around the vibrant, racially and ethnically varied, and often marginalized community of East Los Angeles that we serve. We are committed to growing and supporting a diverse workforce that values, celebrates, and compliments our patient community and joins us in advocating on their behalf. Our resident-run Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) Committee works closely with the residency office leadership to increase the diversity, equity, and inclusion of our training and patient care systems, to remove bias and barriers in recruitment practices, to support and foster the growth of our URiM community, and to develop partnerships with community programs that promote health and justice for our community.
Some of the initiatives our D&I committee members are involved in:
- URiM Family Support: monthly D&I socials, anonymous racism/micro-aggression feedback systems with residency office accountability for submissions, financial support for national and regional conference attendance, as well as faculty and alumni career mentorship.
- Growing a Diverse Workforce: removal of applicant photos and implicit bias training for all involved in the residency application review process, elimination of USMLE cutoffs, D&I committee representation during application review, applicant interviews, and rank list meetings.
- Advocacy: D&I faculty leadership advocating for increased hiring of faculty of color, implicit bias and language services training for all new residents as well as ongoing education on in-person interpreter use, and the development of a criminal justice-health curriculum that seeks to provide residents with an informed context of criminal justice institutions, the human experience of justice-involved persons through these systems, and how we can best serve and provide dignified care for our patients in the Jail ED.
- Community Partnerships: mentorship of URiM students through Keck and community pipeline programs, ongoing relationships with community partners like SCOPHE and Homeboy Industries, and collaboration with our Social EM Committee to expand into new partnerships advocating for the health and equity of our patient community.
We welcome all residents, faculty, and staff who are interested in advocating for these issues, and welcome applicants interested in knowing more about our efforts to reach out with further questions.
Diversity & Inclusion Committee Co-Chairs
Andrew Rosales (PGY-3), Maria Santana (PGY-3, and Claudia Trilles (PGY-2)
Email: [email protected]