In response to Dean Rothman’s request to department directors to devise a plan and generate ideas for Hopkins to make a positive impact on the Baltimore community following the riots that ensued after the funeral of Freddie Gray, Drs. Anderson and Golden announced a five-part lecture series entitled “Journeys in Medicine,” on May 1, 2015 to provide a forum for discussion among our department’s faculty, staff and trainees. Our series had two objectives:
- To explore how the issues of race and background inform our worldview and relationship to our colleagues as well as our journey to Hopkins, our daily lives and our experience at work.
- To strategize and develop novel approaches to improving our environment, building a stronger culture of respect and helping us to become better change agents to improve our surrounding community.
To continue this movement, we are launching a department-wide Civic Engagement Initiative which will be our largest organized effort in our follow-up campaign—“Our Journey in Medicine Continues.”
We propose development of two collaborative steering committees: (1) DOM Staff Engagement Steering Committee and (2) DOM Community Engagement Steering Committee that will meet together to plan activities to enhance diversity and inclusion programs for everyone in our department—faculty, nursing and administrative and support staff—as well as enhance our connection to our surrounding community. Together they will constitute the Committee Including the Voices of our Community (CIVC).
We will evaluate our department’s diversity and inclusion climate around two key areas—human resources (how we are hiring and on-boarding our staff) and clinical (how we are caring for our diverse patient population).
The goals of our initiative are as follows:
- To raise awareness of health inequities and provide opportunity for our faculty and staff to contribute to opportunities to improve health equity
- To facilitate delivery of culturally/linguistic/spiritually competent, patient-centered care in the Department of Medicine
- To create a diverse and inclusive workforce in the Department of Medicine
If you are interested in serving on one or both of the Steering Committees, please contact Tamala Knox (tamala.knox@jhmi.edu). We look forward to working with you!
-Sherita Golden, Executive Vice Chair
-Eleni Flanagan, Assistant Director of Nursing
-Darren Brownlee, Assistant Administrator
