BLOG: One small grand rounds innovation to increase equity
The literature shows that most CME speakers are men and that “manels” are still too common.
On CME planning committees, I have deliberately recommended speakers who were outstanding clinicians, great presenters and as diverse as the audience. Often the best presenters are those who have been overlooked because of implicit biases that we all have about who we perceive as experts and as leaders.
Several years ago, I helped start a Grand Round Steering Committee in the department of internal medicine at University of New Mexico to provide more flexibility, more relevance and more equity. What we did is scalable to other places, and I hope others consider following suit and doing even better.
In once-monthly grand rounds slots, we introduced content outside of department subspecialties on addiction, health policy and leadership, as well as on health equity, gender equity and race and racism in health care and society. We invited experts from groups that are underrepresented as speakers, including minoritized people, trainees and assistant professors.
Through this deliberate approach, we achieved gender equity in presenters, had multiple assistant professors give grand rounds (which helped them in the promotions process) and had the highest representation of African American, Native American, Asian American and Latino presenters in the history of the department.
Read the full blog post at Women in Medicine Summit.
For more information:
Eileen Barrett, MD, MPH, SFHM, MACP, is an assistant professor in the department of internal medicine at University of New Mexico. She can be reached on Twitter @EileenBarrettNM.
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