The hate crimes and other acts of racism over the past year have increased public awareness of the importance of creating and supporting a diverse and inclusive environment.
This carries over into health care as well. Creating a medical laboratory workforce that is both diverse and culturally inclusive is critical to the success of the laboratory and essential to improving patient care. With that mission in mind, ASCP’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DE+I) initiative has created an array of education to help pathology and medical laboratory teams better meet the ethnic, social, cultural and gender inclusive needs of staff and patients.
“In the last few years, there has been increased awareness and education around diversity and inclusion,” said Lotte Mulder, PhD, Director of Leadership and Empowerment at ASCP. “People are understanding the impact that systemic racism and bias have on our society and on healthcare delivery. In response, ASCP has created education to address systemic racism. It is presented across a variety of channels to accommodate people’s different learning styles on this important issue.”
ASCP members can download podcasts, take part in virtual town hall discussions, read peer-reviewed journals and attend virtual and live sessions to learn how they can put meaningful change into practice at all levels of their healthcare organizations. Below are some examples of the education ASCP’s DE+I team has put together.
ASCP 2021 Annual Meeting
Whether participants attend the ASCP 2021 Annual Meeting virtually or live in Boston from Oct. 27-29, they have the opportunity to take part in several sessions that specifically focus on DE+I topics.
One session is on transgender pathology in clinical pathology and anatomic pathology. Key takeaways will include learning about the challenges that transgender and gender non-conforming people face in accessing health care and the specific challenges that transgender people face in the area of anatomic pathology processing and reporting. The session will be taught by Jeff SoRelle, MD, FASCP, and Julie Papango, MLS(ASCP)
CM, who also participated in a successful
episode on transgender pathology in ASCP’s podcast Inside the Lab earlier this year.
The second session will share best practices in regard to recruiting and retaining a diverse workforce. “Employers often express a desire to cultivate a diverse workforce, but they don’t actually know how to reach out and attract them,” Dr. Mulder explains. “Once you have a diverse workforce, how can you ensure you retain them?” Taught by Dr. Mulder, along with Kamran Mirza, MD, FASCP, MLS(ASCP)
CM, and Alisha Ware, MD, this session will encourage participants to learn how to create a holistic review of applications and to how to reduce implicit bias in the recruiting process.
The third session is about leveraging laboratory databases for health equity and will be taught by Monique Dodd, MD, and Teofilo Borunda, MD.
Society of Black Pathologists
In early 2021, ASCP helped to establish the Society of Black Pathologists (SBP) to encourage more Black and under-represented minorities to enter the pathology profession and enhance leadership development in an effort to provide more equitable care. Carla L. Ellis, MD, MS, FASCP, president of the SBP, and Dana Powell Baker, MBA, MS, MLS(ASCP)
CM, will present a virtual session on personal wellness. Wellness is an important topic for everyone, but becomes even more crucial when dealing with discrimination on a frequent basis. This session is included in a three-part series that covers personal, organizational and community wellness. The latter two sessions will be presented live at the ASCP 2021 Annual Meeting and will be taught by Dr. Mulder, Darryl Elzie, PsyD, MHA, MT(ASCP), CQA(ASQ), Melissa, Upton, MD, FASCP, and Nichole Jackson, MD, MPH, FASCP.
Using Data to Understand Trends
ASCP has also invited experts to write about various DE+I topics for its member journals. In October 2020, the
American Journal of Clinical Pathology (AJCP) published an article,
Reversing Historical Trends: The Crisis, the Challenge, and the Opportunity, by Von Samedi, MD, PhD, Carla Ellis, MD, MS, Nicole R. Jackson, MD, MPH, FASCP, Jordan P. Reynolds, MD, and ASCP Past President Melissa P. Upton, MD.
The article analyzes representation of women and men, Whites and underrepresented minorities in trainee and postgraduate positions in pathology, including academic and practice settings. The authors used large databases that have captured demographic information for decades across all fields of graduate and postgraduate medicine.
“These are just a few examples of the education that ASCP is developing in the area of diversity, inclusion and equity,” Dr. Mulder emphasized. “The ultimate goal is to create a workforce where everyone is appreciated, included and has a strong sense of belonging for both our members and our patients.
To learn more about ASCP’s DEI initiatives, click
here.
