Taking action.
In this issue of Brown Medicine, you’ll read about the Warren Alpert Medical School’s newly adopted Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan (DIAP). Our faculty, students, residents, and staff have worked very hard on developing this plan during the past year, and we are pleased to share it with the broader medical community.
Any type of action plan such as this needs the complete support of an institution’s leadership in order to be successful. We have seen this exemplified by President Christina Paxson and Provost Richard Locke at the University level as Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion: An Action Plan for Brown was developed and implemented. As you will read in the article, the Medical School’s DIAP was formulated with input from representatives of our community, and my associate deans and I wholeheartedly support it. We will work to facilitate the initiatives put forth in this plan, and hold ourselves accountable for their implementation.
The DIAP is comprehensive, outlining steps that will impact faculty, residents and fellows, and students. It goes beyond just increasing the number of individuals from groups underrepresented in medicine in our faculty ranks and student cohorts, and it encompasses all forms of diversity, including sexual and gender identity, socioeconomic status, and political point of view. We want the culture at Warren Alpert Medical School to be one where all members of our community feel respected and valued.
All of us can benefit from exposure to varying viewpoints and experiences different from our own. In medicine, we are charged with caring for an infinitely diverse array of patients. Learning and working with individuals from a similarly diverse array of backgrounds will help us provide more appropriate care to all patients.
Jack A. Elias, MD
Dean of Medicine and Biological Sciences
