Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Promoting diversity, equity, and a culture of inclusion is extremely important to the UR Medicine Palliative Care Division and Fellowship program, and to the University of Rochester at large. At its core Palliative Care is about tending to the suffering not just of patients and their families, but of the community as a whole. The events of recent years have laid bare the profound and longstanding suffering of historically marginalized members of our professional, patient, and neighborhood communities, a glaring and painful reality long overlooked by medical culture and institutions, including ours.  We are finally seriously coming to terms with our own role in this injustice, and committing to doing better by educating ourselves, our fellows, and our multidisciplinary colleagues and trainees, and by enacting meaningful, lasting changes.  Better understanding of the disparities and inequities that exist within our society, the medical community, and our own field of Palliative Care will open the door to better care for our patients, families, care team and community at large.

To that end, our division has created a Working Group specifically tasked with Increasing Diversity within Palliative Care. For education, we are working to better integrate the themes of equity and inclusion throughout our fellows’ core Palliative Care seminar series.  We will also be dedicating one of our monthly Palliative Care Grand Rounds and four of our monthly Schwartz Center Rounds to discussions specifically pertaining to DEI. Looking toward the future, we are partnering with the departments of Medicine, Pediatrics and Neurology on a pilot program to improve mentorship for learners from backgrounds underrepresented in medicine, and hope to more closely collaborate with our local Student National Medical Association, Latino Medical Student Association, and Association of Minority Residents and Fellows moving forward.

We are proud to be part of a university that has made this a priority, and we recognize that our own efforts are only a first step.  To learn more about the efforts of the medical center, including the Equity & Anti-Racism Action Plan, as well as the resources available, please visit our Office of Equity and Inclusion.