EQUITY, DIVERSITY, AND INCLUSION AT THE UW DEPARTMENT OF OPHTHALMOLOGY
The Department of Ophthalmology held a full faculty retreat on the topic of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. All faculty had an opportunity to complete a survey prior to the retreat to address what the department does well in EDI and areas where the department could improve. The retreat focused on EDI as it pertains to our important objectives of education, research, and patient care. Our keynote speaker, Leo S. Morales, MD, PhD, FACP, Director of the UW School of Medicine Center for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (CEDI), talked about the importance of EDI as a primary consideration in all aspects of our academic pursuits, and Dr. Morales’ presentation was received with positive feedback by participants. Faculty members gave talks in the areas of education, research, and patient care, including some data presentations of our own efforts to advance EDI in academics as well as a quantitative review of our patient tracking at Harborview Medical Center.
Our retreat generated a host of EDI initiatives, including: addressing healthcare disparities in our UW Medicine eye health patient population, reviewing trainee recruitment efforts, and appropriate use of race, sex, and gender descriptors in educational presentations. We are in the stage of implementing some initiatives currently, in the hope of making EDI part of our daily department mission. I want to thank our faculty, trainees, and staff for participating in these efforts.
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Message from the Chair
Russell N. Van Gelder, M.D., Ph.D.-
Our mission is to eliminate suffering from eye disease, both in our region and the wider world. We do this by providing the highest quality medical and surgical eye care for patients, seeking new knowledge and treatments for eye diseases through rigorous research, and preparing the next generation of physicians and vision scientists to do the same.
