FROM STFM: STFM SOLIDIFIES ANTIRACISM INITIATIVE

Recent Task Force Formation, Tactic Development, and Grant Funding for Learning Collaborative

Guided by a 5-year strategic plan, the Society of Teachers of Family Medicine’s (STFM’s) new antiracism initiative seeks to advance racial equity and reduce the prevalence of racism in academic family medicine. This initiative was developed in alignment with the STFM policy against discrimination with the following objectives of:

• Engaging in partnerships that contribute to the health equity of communities through medical education

• Increasing the skill set of family medicine faculty related to health equity

• Increasing the diversity of family medicine faculty and the diversity of learners interested in teaching

• Modeling antiracism and providing support to STFM members in their efforts to transform family medicine educators, learners, and their institutions to be more antiracist

The action plan for the Antiracism Initiative is aligned with STFM strategic objectives, and the work will be led by an STFM antiracism task force.

Antiracism Action Plan Strategic Objectives

• Create institutional change by helping members identify and overcome racist structures and behaviors within their own institutions and by providing family medicine faculty and learners the knowledge and skills to be effective advocates for antiracism policies and practices in their institutions and communities

• Promote allyship by enhancing the knowledge and skills of family medicine faculty and learners in bestowed power and intercultural humility so they may more effectively serve as allies to Black, indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) peers and trainees and helping STFM members take action as upstanders

• Model antiracism by integrating an antiracist analysis and identity into the work of all STFM resources and programming provided to members

• Empower the next generation to impact change by providing support to STFM members in their efforts to transform family medicine educators, learners, and their institutions to be more antiracist

In June 2021, the task force developed and executed a survey sent to almost 5,000 STFM members, including residents and students, to gather baseline data on perceptions of racism in their academic environments.

In September 2021, the STFM Foundation was granted funding from Adtalem Global Education Foundation for an Antiracism Learning Collaborative, a necessary tactic in achieving several of the plan’s strategic objectives. The collaborative will include 1 Underrepresented in Medicine faculty member from as many as 20 family medicine departments or residency programs and 1 ally (pairs) from the same program, institution, or health system. This IRB-approved study will be overseen by the STFM Antiracism Task Force with the goals of:

• Empowering and educating participants to identify racist structures and behaviors within their academic institutions and become leaders for change

• Promoting allyship

• Spreading effective change strategies

A call for applications for the Learning Collaborative will go out in fall, 2021 with a start date of early 2022.

STFM Antiracism and Health Equity goals and objectives, along with additional STFM antiracism and health equity resources and URM scholarship information, can be found at stfm.org/antiracism.

STFM Antiracism Task Force

Chair: Tricia Elliott, MD

Senior VP, Medical, Academic, and Research Affairs, Chief Academic Officer

John Peter Smith Hospital (Tarrant County Hospital District) Family Medicine Residency, Fort Worth, Texas

Thomas W. Bishop, PsyD, MA

Assistant Professor, Assistant Residency Director

University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, Michigan

Echo Buffalo (medical student, Class of 2022)

Medical University of South Carolina College of Medicine, Charleston, South Carolina

Renee Crichlow, MD

Incoming Vice-Chair, Boston University Department of Family Medicine

Boston University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts

Edgar Figueroa, MD, MPH

Director of Student Health

Weill Cornell Medical College of Cornell University, New York, New York

Victoria Gorski, MD

Associate Professor, Department of Family and Social Medicine

Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, Bronx, New York

Cleveland Piggott, Jr, MD, MPH

Vice Chair for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion for CU Family Medicine

University of Colorado (University Hospital), Denver, Colorado

Kristin Reavis, MD

Residency Director, Director of Student Diversity & Inclusion in the Office of Student Affairs

University of Maryland, Baltimore, Maryland

Mary Theobald, MBA

Chief of Strategy and Innovation

Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, Leawood, Kansas

Emily Walters

Director of Education and Special Projects

Society of Teachers of Family Medicine, Leawood, Kansas

Julia Wang, MD (resident)

Swedish Cherry Hill Family Medicine Residency, Seattle, Washington