- So many happy faces today, and it looks like the sun
is coming out the back door, which always makes me happy. I am Kate Tracy, the Senior Associate Dean for research here in the
Larner College of Medicine and Dean Page is currently out of town. So I have the honor of
hosting today's event and I'm thrilled to be
here with all of you, we have online also, to welcome everyone who's online as well. I would like to thank all
of you for joining us today for this very special event,
our fifth annual
celebration of gender equity in medicine and science. I'd like to take just a brief moment to remind you of the
history of this initiative. The Gender Equity Initiative
at Larner went public in September of 2019
with an initial town hall to showcase our community's commitment to gender equity in medicine and science. Just days after the town hall,
Dean Page joined the dean of the College of Nursing
and Health Sciences in the Hale Gallery to come
together as official signatories through Times Up
Healthcare
and with that pledge, we joined dozens of other
hospitals and schools across the country to formally denounce sexual
harassment and gender inequity and commit to protecting
those that are targeted and to tracking the scope of the problem. Our inaugural celebration
was held in March of 2020 and our gender equity steering committee has since been hard at work and brought us a Gender
Equity Education series every semester over the past few years, exploring the work of building
a just, e
qual, diverse, and inclusive environment. Today's session continues that tradition and I am delighted to welcome
Dr. Debora Kamin Mukaz. Good to see you. Round of applause. Assistant professor of Medicine here at the Lerner College of Medicine. Debora also is kind enough to serve on my research advisory council, so thank you for that as well. Round of applause for that. Service to the college, service
to the dean for research. I'm also really pleased that we'll be recognizing several members of
our Larner community with this year's Gender Equity Awards drawn from dozens of worthy nominees. It's a real affirmation
of the depth of talent and strength in our community and the community's
commitment to gender equity. Gender equity at Larner has been propelled by the energetic work of members of our Office of
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. Where are our ODEI folks? Round of applause for ODEI. To our gender equity steering committee and Dr. Anne Dougherty and her
leadership of that committee,
are the committee members here as well? Round of applause to our
steering committee, fantastic. Dr. Dougherty is a professor
of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences, and she is the Director of Gender Equity in the Office of Diversity,
Equity and Inclusion. And this great group has
brought exceptional energy and thoughtfulness to bear on the issue of gender equity here and
across the medical college. So it is with my great pleasure that I will now turn the
stage over to Dr. Dougherty
. - How about now?
- [Speaker] Yes. - Just have to turn it on and turn it off. That's what my husband always tells me. So good afternoon and welcome everyone to the celebration of gender equity in medicine and science, our fifth annual. Thank you so much, Dean Tracy for lending your support
for this celebration, for supporting gender equity and for representing
our college leadership. We appreciate all of that. The celebration of gender equity is held during women's
history month each year, and
it's appropriate that International
Women's Day is tomorrow. And in a world striving for excellence, it's critical that gender inclusivity be central to that conversation and today we celebrate all genders, particularly women and
gender diverse identities and understand the intersection
of multiple identities, adds extra layers of challenge and our keynote speaker today will talk much more in depth about that. As Dean Tracy mentioned, the Gender Equity Initiative
began five years ago and has inc
rementally taken
root thanks to all of you and your efforts in your
own spheres of influence as well as the commitment
from our leadership, particularly Dean Page. Additionally, over the past five years, the gender equity steering
committee has worked hard and provided critical guidance to the Gender Equity Initiative. So I'm going to read off the
names of the current members of the steering committee
or related working groups to give them the recognition
that they deserve. Jo Conant, Leigh Ann
Holterman, Bridget Marroquin, I think I saw here. Ramsey Herrington, Sherrie
Khandanga, James Stafford, Katie Wells, Pam Gibson, Nathalie Feldman, Jen Hall, Molly Berry,
and Eileen Cichoski-Kelly and thank you to all of you for showing up and doing the work. I really, really appreciate it. In the past five years, the Gender Equity Initiative
has held countless events through the Gender
Equity Education series. It's bestowed 30 honors on
faculty, staff and students through the Gender Equity Award
s. Over 40 faculty have been part of the Women in Medicine and
Science Peer Leadership group. Some of your departments
participated in a pilot of the gender equity report card, which was an effort to use data to measure equity within our college. And this was an incredibly
laborious undertaking for those who participated. But the end result was that
we were not only able to show that the data that came out
was meaningful and actionable, but also that we needed
centralized resources to be able to
collect and
analyze data effectively. Through this effort and in collaboration with
our office of faculty, we were able to add a data analyst, a dedicated data analyst,
Jessica Collins, to our team who's working now with HR and IT to harmonize data streams in the college so that we can say more about where we are with respect to diversity and equity. And it's through this effort that we've been able to
look at promotion data over a 10 year span, five years previous to the Gender Equity Initiati
ve and five years following
the initiative's inception. And we found some interesting results. We found that overall faculty
members have increased and the gender gap overall
in our faculty is closing. The good news is that all promotions, regardless of gender
have increased over time. However, or in addition,
successful promotion for women, though decreasing over time, compared to their represent
representation on faculty prior to 2019 showed an overwhelmingly
positive trend after 2019. Male fa
culty promotions during the time period
also increased by numbers and trends were positive or comparable to trends prior to and after the launch of the Gender Equity Initiative in 2019. So everyone is doing well. There are more promotions that
are happening successfully and the trajectory of promotions for women have increased dramatically
over time since 2019. And these similar trends persisted
across clinical education and research scholar pathways. The one place where we
did see work to be do
ne is on the tenure pathway for women. And so by taking data, we're able to see where we need to target our
work and that's positive. Well, I know it'd be foolhardy
to assign exclusive causation to the Gender Equity Initiative. We are scientists. I do know that all of you have been part of a concerted
effort beginning in 2019 with the launch of the
Gender Equity Initiative to shine a light on gender equity and to look deeply at
institutional culture. I'm positive of that and
over the last five y
ears, you've all made changes within your units to support equity inclusion and it also goes without saying that support from leadership
has been absolutely critical. So it's in this vein that
we celebrate achievements and continue to push
each other to do more. So before I introduce our
esteemed keynote speaker, please allow me to address
a few housekeeping issues or matters. If you are participating today remotely, a live captioning link
is provided in the chat, which Tiffany is gonna put in t
here now. And if you wish to stay informed about upcoming gender equity events,
please join our Listserv, which you can do by scanning the QR code or by clicking the link that Tiffany will put in the chat as well. So thank you for your attention and without further delay, I'm going to welcome our keynote speaker. And I'm so, so excited
about this talk today. It's a great honor that I
introduce our keynote speaker, Dr. Debora Kamin Mukaz. Dr. Kamin Mukaz, a molecular
and social epidemiologist bri
ngs a wealth of expertise
to our gathering today. Her journey in the scientific realm began in the Democratic Republic of Congo where her passion for stem
was nurtured by her father. She holds a bachelor's degree in biology and French from Luther College and a master's degree
in biological sciences from the University of Delaware. Her PhD also from the
University of Delaware was in medical sciences and focused on the epidemiology of acculturation and diabetes
in African immigrants in the United
States. Dr. Kamin Mukaz served as an American Heart Association
funded postdoctoral fellow here at the University of Vermont, Larner College of Medicine. Under the mentorship of Dr. Mary Cushman, she delved into critical research areas focusing on racial and
geographic inequities and cardiovascular and
cardiometabolic diseases, as well as the impact of COVID-19. Her work is deeply rooted in some of the largest
longitudinal studies in the United States. Currently, Dr. Kamin Mukaz serves as an ass
istant
professor of medicine in the Department of Medicine division of hematology oncology here at the Larner College of Medicine. Beyond her scientific pursuits, Dr. Kamin Mukaz is the
co-founder of Black in Cardio, a platform dedicated to
promoting diversity and inclusion in cardiovascular research. Her commitment to bridging gaps and advocating for equity extends
far beyond the laboratory, and we're so proud to have
her on faculty with us and proud to have her today
as our keynote speaker. Pl
ease join me in extending a warm welcome to Dr. Debora Kamin Mukaz. - Thank you so much for
this kind introduction. So my talk today will be on
why intersectionality matters for Life Sciences and Medicine. Before I get into the main
topic of today's conversation, I wanted to talk a little
bit about my background. I'm a firm believer in
acknowledging our positionality, and I also want you to understand how my own intersectional,
marginalized identities shaped the person that I am today and shaped
the scientist that I am today. So I was born in the Democratic
Republic of the Congo. The Congo is the third largest country on the African continent and arguably, it is the
richest country in the world in terms of natural resources. And because it is a black African country and because of its wealth, Congo's history was shaped by the
transatlantic slave trade. Almost 40% of people were
enslaved on the African continent came from Congo or Angola,
which is a neighboring country. And in my own fa
mily oral tradition, we talk about family
members that were kidnapped and never seen again. And after the end of the
transatlantic slave trade, Europe, because Africa was weakened, Europe decided to make
their presence permanent. So at the end of the
19th century, Germany, or particularly the German
Chancellor Otto Bismarck decided to hold a conference at the request of the
Belgian King Leopold II. And the goal of that conference was to really formalize colonization and formalize the partition
o
f the African continent. And they did not care about families, they did not care about kingdoms, did not care about
societies on the continent. And after that, Leopold
II became the sole owner of a country, the Congo. And it is an understatement when I say that his reign in
the Congo was characterized by systemic violence and brutality. It is estimated that one to 15
million Congolese people died during that period. And because of, and even for that period, it was extremely violent. So the Belgi
an government
decided to take over and for 50 years after Leopold II's reign, Congo was under the Belgian government, and colonization and the
transatlantic slave trade really shaped the history of Congo and shaped the reality that is Congo today and shaped the reality
that my family and people and my friends and people
like me lived under. So I am the first born of a family of six. I was born in Katanga, the richest or one of the richest regions in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When I w
as three or four, my mother, my two siblings and myself, we had to leave the country
for a while without our father because the situation in
Katanga was getting worse and we eventually came back. But when I tell you that
I don't have memories of peace and stability in
Congo, it is the reality. But the thing is Congolese
exists in this dual reality. At the same time, I was born
in a middle class family and because of that, my
father and my mother, my family valued formal education. But Congo is a
society that values, not unlike the United States, that values men over women. So my dreams, I was told and shown, that my dreams were not valid. But fortunately for me, I had a father who believed that I
should get an education. So because of that, I was
able to escape the instability in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and escaped the gendered violence at times in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Then I came to the United States and my reality in the United
States was very interestin
g. I recognized that academia gave me a lot and I'm thankful for that. But grad school and
undergrads were traumatic. I went through a lot and
my situation is not unique. In my own circle of
black women scientists, I do not know anyone who has not gone through
traumatic experiences during their academic journeys. And the thing is, academia, this situation is not unique to academia, it extends to the healthcare system. As a black woman, I have been dismissed in
the healthcare system, especially w
hen it comes
to my reproductive health. And when it comes to black
women's biggest issue when it comes to health,
the system is the problem. So this introduction really shows here that I exist at the intersection of multiple marginalized identities. I am woman, I am immigrant, I am black among other identities. And these identities,
they are shaped by systems like sexism, anti-black racism, nativism that determine what rights and
resources I have access to. So I talked about
intersectional ident
ities. What is intersectionality? So intersectionality
is one of the main ways to understand how systems
of oppression operate. It is a way of understanding and analyzing the complexity in the world, in people and in human experiences. When it comes to social inequality, people's lives and organization
of power in a given society are better understood, are
shaped not by a single access of social division like
race, gender, or class, but many accesses that work together and influence each other.
Okay, I think we are missing a slide here, but what I wanted to say is that intersectionality was coined by Dr. Kimberlé Crenshaw. But what we need to remember is that Intersectionality
predates Dr. Crenshaw's work. It comes from black feminists
and black women's spaces and when we talk about
intersectionality in academia, we think about it as this abstract term. It is not abstract. It comes from black
women's lived experiences. So it should be treated as such. Because the world is complex
and b
ecause people are complex, intersectionality will be complex. And to guide you, I'm going
to talk about a few concepts. So the first concept
I'm going to talk about is intersecting marginalized identities. So when it comes to identities, they intersect with each other. For instance, I'm a black woman, so I have a marginalized
identity when it comes to gender. I have a marginalized identity when it comes to race or ethnicity. And there are marginalized identities when it comes to class,
romantic
orientation, ability, and sexuality. However, it is not the
marginalized identities that creates injustices, inequalities. What creates inequalities and injustices are systems of oppression. So what do I mean by
systems of oppression? There's something wrong
with this presentation, but what do I mean by
systems of oppression? By systems of oppression, I mean things like racism,
sexism, and classism. So when it comes to our understanding of systems of oppression
like intersectionality, they are c
omplex, but you can categorize
them into three if you may. So you have individual oppression. When we talk about individual oppression, we are looking at interpersonal oppression and interpersonal oppression is about discrimination and prejudice. Then you have internalized oppression. Internalized oppression
deals with negative messages by members of marginalized community and then you have structural oppression. And structural oppression is
the root cause of everything. It is about laws, polici
es, and rule, explicit and not explicit
that really shaped the culture that we live in. So, now that I've given you an overview of intersectionality, let's talk a little bit about limitations when it comes to
intersectionality studies. So the first thing is when it comes to
intersectionality studies, what we see is that data
is not disaggregated, is often not disaggregated
by race and ethnicity. The other thing is this
focus on gender binarism and a focus on cis women. So when we talk about inte
rsectionality, oftentimes it is about cis women and we don't look at
gender diverse people. And the other thing is
intersectionality studies don't go beyond race, gender,
and socioeconomic status. And these limitations are very important when it comes to the
definition or the significance or the way that
intersectionality operates. When people think about intersectionality, oftentimes what they imagine is that you are stacking
identities on top of each other. That's not what is happening. What i
s happening is that you
are creating a new meaning. So I'm going to introduce two new terms, and I don't know, some
of you might know them. The first one is misogynoir. Misogynoir deals with the misogyny, the anti-black racism and the sexism that is
affecting black women or people that read as black women and it's very particular to black women. Then the other term is transmisogynoir. Transmisogynoir is dealing
with the oppression at the intersection of cis sexism or the belief that the expressi
on, the gender expression of cis people is more valid than that of trans people. And the transmisia or the
hatred of trans people and then misogyny and anti-black racism. And that oppression is very particular to transfeminine and trans
women, trans black women and trans-feminine black women. So with that, and I really
wanted you to get this concept because it'll help you understand when we look at the data
on intersectionality, why it looks like that. And finally, intersectionality
centers the
margins. You cannot talk about intersectionality without looking at
marginalized identities. So when it comes to intersectionality, the margins are black women, the margins are black trans
women or transfeminine people. Those are the people that matter most when it comes to intersectionality. So I'm sorry, there was
something wrong with the slide, so I hope you were able to understand what I'm trying to get to. So now let's talk about
intersectionality and health and I'm really hoping that
these
slides are much better. So when it comes to
intersectionality and health, there's a lot of data,
but for the sake of time, and because this is a current situation that we are living through right now, I'm going to talk about intersectionality and reproductive health. I don't know what's
happening with these slides. This is interesting. Can I get some help here? There's something wrong with the slide. They're not, like some of
them are missing, yeah. (person speaking indistinctly) Yeah, I think
it's very
important that we see the data. I'm sorry for this short interruption, but I do feel that it's
important that we see the data. - [Dr. Dougherty] Do you have
a version that we can borrow? - [Debora] Yes. - [Dr. Dougherty] I was wondering if we didn't have the most recent version. - [Debora] I think I sent
the most recent version. So Emily, here is the version that has- - [Dr. Dougherty] (indistinct). - [Debora] Yeah. Okay. Yes, yes, this is the version that I have. It has everything. -
[Speaker] Emily, if the
version that she's pulled up, Bruce can bring it up, but she wants you to look,
just make sure we're correct. - [Debora] Yes, it's the- - [Dr. Dougherty] I think the
one just was emailed to her. - [Debora] Yeah, I emailed to her. - [Dr. Dougherty] It's the correct one? - [Debora] It's the correct
one, the latest versions. - [Dr. Dougherty] You
wanna take a look at it or that's good. - [Debora] That's the right
version, I know to do that. Yes, I want to make sure. - [Dr. D
ougherty] Okay. (person speaking indistinctly) - [Debora] Yes. No, something happened to the version. - [Dr. Dougherty] I'm sorry,
we should have checked this. We should have checked this. - [Debora] No worries. Fortunately this presentation is shorter. All right, I'm sorry. So thank you so much for your patience. Thank you for your patience. I wanted to make sure that
we talked about the data because it's very important
for you to understand what and how intersectionality functions when it come
s to reproductive health. So when it comes to reproductive health, the first thing that we see
is that in the United States, black women are more likely to die from pregnancy and its complications than any other racial ethnic group. When you look at that graph there, the mortality rates for black women is almost three times as
high as that of white women. And the mortality rates
from American Indian and Alaska native women
when it comes to pregnancy and its complication is
almost two times as hi
gh. So we do see clear disparities there and we see similar patterns when it comes to infant mortality. Black infants have a higher mortality rate than any other racial ethnic group. So the mortality rates when it compare black
infants to white infants is almost two times as high. And we see similar or disparities when it comes to American
Indian and Alaska native infants and native Hawaiian infants. Now, if you look at the data with Asian and Pacific Islander infants, you see that they have a l
ower mortality. But remember what I told you
about data disaggregation. When you look for a lot of these studies when it comes to Asian America, the data is not disaggregated, which is masking the disparities and which is going to
influence the policies that are related to infant
and maternal mortality. This one, this study really,
really shook the world or it shook science. Black women in California, the data showed that poor black women
compared to rich black women and white women at the
highe
st infant mortality. However, the richest
black women in California at the higher infant mortality rate than the poorest white women,
money is not as protective for black women or black mothers. Remember when I told you that intersectionality
creates a new reality? This is some of the things
or one of the aspects of it. In fact, Beyonce and Serena Williams almost died giving birth because of issues related
to the healthcare system. But again, and I keep on saying that we need to be able to
pick
and state things clearly. It is racism and sexism that is driving the higher maternal mortality
rate for black women. And this is not unique
to the United States. We see similar data in Brazil. We see similar data in the UK. Something is happening there. Medicine and biomedical research
have played an active role in creating and sustaining misogynoir. Remember misogynoir, the
oppression that black women face. Marion Sims, the father of gynecology was known to operate on enslaved
women without an
esthesia because he believed that black
people could not feel pain. And that belief is still
present till this day when it comes to the
treatment of black pain. Henrietta Lacks, without Henrietta Lacks, modern medicine and modern science would not be what it is today. But her cells were taken
without her consent. And it was not until last
year, only last year, her family was able to reach
some type of settlement. And when we look at research
on black trans-masculine and gender diverse birthing
p
eople, it is extremely limited. And that erasure is
increasing marginalization and is also increasing the risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes. And that erasure is contributing to the perpetuation of sexism, racism, and transmisia in medicine
and biomedical research. So as physicians, as researchers, we are playing a key role
in maintaining the system that is putting black people, black women, trans black women, trans masculine, trans-feminine black people at risk. So now that I've talked about
in
tersectionality and health, and I've introduced what
is happening in medicine, let's talk about intersectionality
in medicine and sciences. black women are underrepresented
in STEM and medicine. So black women make up 7%
of the American population and only 1% of doctoral degree holders in STEM are black women. Only 4.3% of medical students
in the United States. Even when we look at the disparities, the inequities of black women and only 2.7% of physicians in
this country are black women. Let's t
alk about academic medicine. Women are already underrepresented. So in 2018, 46% of assistant
professors were women and only 25% were full professors. Now, when you break down
the data by race and gender, women of color are underrepresented. So another data can be, it's a lot because it's a lot of
people that they looked at. But let's talk about black women
and black women are in red. When you look at women
assistant professors in the United States, only
3% of them are black women. And then when
you look at Latina women, what you do see here,
it's only 5.8% of them are full-time professors. So when you look at full professors, the data is even worse. So only 2.8% of full
professors are black women and only 3% are of Hispanic,
Latino or Spanish origin. And so you have a problem here. We have a problem with recruitment and we have a problem with retention. Something is happening here. So, which brings me to, I've talked about intersectionality, I've talked about the inequities
when it co
mes to health. I've talked about what
is happening in STEM and academic medicine. So why does it matter? Why does intersectionality matter to life sciences and medicine? Health inequities cannot be eliminated without implementing systemic
and intersectional solutions in academic medicine, sciences
and the healthcare system. Focusing on a single access of
oppression leads to erasure. Erasure leads to marginalization. Marginalization increases disparities. If we want to change things, it is very i
mportant for institutions to acknowledge intersectional
marginalized identities, but also acknowledge how
systems of oppression operate intersectionality. And when you do that, it's
good to acknowledge things, but it is also good to
start implementing systemic and intersectional solutions. Scientific innovation. Time and time again, the data is showing that scientific innovation depends on the diversity
of people in the room. But what is happening here is that we don't see that diversity. And th
e clearest example, like one of the current examples that we see right now is
with artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is
being used more and more in higher ed education, medical discovery, treatment, diagnosis. So if we fail to take an
intersectional look at the data that we receive when it comes to people, and if we fail to include people who have at the intersectionality of multiple marginalized identities, what is going to happen is
that these health disparities, and it is a ver
y pressing matter, these health disparities
are going to get worse and then finally, this, we are connected. Dr. Martin Luther King said it better. "Injustice anywhere is a
threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an escapable
network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny." And we saw that with
the COVID-19 pandemic. Because policies at the
beginning of the pandemic ignored the most marginalized,
all of us suffered and the other thing is
reproductive justice. The state of repro
ductive
rights in the United States is what it is right now because we ignored what was
happening to marginalized women and gender diverse people, what was happening to their rights. When people lose their
rights, when a community, a marginalized community
lose their rights, or when you see health inequities, eventually those inequities
are going to affect all of us. And I apologize for what
happened with the presentation, but I'm going to leave
you with this quote. "If black women were free, it
'll mean that everyone
else will have to be free, since our freedom would
necessitate the distraction of all systems of oppression." And this quote is from the
Combahee River Collective, and it was a collective
of black lesbian feminist in the 70s. And that collective
really set the groundwork for Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw's
work on intersectionality. So again, I apologize for the presentation and this is the end of my slideshow. Please feel free to ask questions. - Thank you so much, Dr. Kami
n Mukaz for really enlightening and
I think challenging talk. I hope everyone feels a
little bit uncomfortable in the room, that's the
right feeling to have. We're happy to take
questions for a few moments. I see Dr. Leonard has their hand up. - [Dr. Leonard] Hi, thank you
very much for very interesting and challenging presentation. You've been around UVM,
Larner College of Medicine and the health system
here long enough too, what are the systemic things
that we need to change? Are there specifi
c policies? Maybe this is too targeted a question, but I don't mean to put you on the spot, but I'm one for action and you've described the problem, but what is it we need to do? - It's a huge question and we had a discussion in
the room before I came here. I think you want to start
with something small. The community that we
have here in Vermont, we have black women, we
have trans black women, we have migrants women, what do you do when it
comes to their healthcare? How do you treat them within
the healthcare system? Do you have policies that make sure that they are well treated
when they go to the hospital? I'm just thinking about myself and previous interactions outside of UVM when it came to dealing with physicians, that those interactions matter and in order for them to work well, you have to have policies. You cannot just rely on
people to do the right thing. You have to have policies when it comes to the
language that people use, when it comes to the way
that people are treated.
And that's just one
thing that can be done. - [Dr. Leonard] So to
just say, just make sure, make sure that- - [Dr. Dougherty] Can we just... Liz, I just wanna make
sure we get a microphone so that the folks on Zoom can also hear. - [Dr. Leonard] Okay, speaking as the only black female tenured full professor in this entire institution, make sure that this young
investigator gets tenure and is promoted to professor. That's what I would
say to start right now. - [Mary] Thank you, so I'm Mary Cushm
an. I'm Dr. Kamin Mukaz's mentor and I can hardly like, contain myself because I'm so proud of her and we are currently converting
her to the tenure track because of the way she was hired. So if you're on the PT committee or you have the provost ear, please put that word in for her. It's not gonna be a problem. My question that goes
broader than Vermont, what are we supposed to do with what's going on in our country when we have states in our country and leaders in our country who say, women don
't matter,
women shouldn't work. There's this person in North
Carolina running for governor who says things like that, who says the Holocaust is hogwash. How can we make change when we are faced with those
kinds of public discourse as well as policies being
instituted right today in states in the United
States that are prohibiting things like programs on DEI that are supposed to help us address some of the things you're talking about. So imagine in Vermont,
if we were not allowed to even have th
is discussion
we're having today, what can we do? - This is such a good question
because we talked about it. You have to understand the
reason why this is happening. Like oppression, the
systems of oppression work because the need is power and resources and what you are witnessing
is a need to go back to the state school and when it comes to
these type of situations, the first thing that you have to be able is to work on yourself, really. You have to be able to understand how you as a person is
participating in these systems and you as a person is being
harmed by these systems. The other thing is within
your own community, like the way that this thing
happened was in schools, people went into their schools and they had conversations
about banning books. So if they can do that
within small communities, you can do the same thing
within your own community. And the other thing also
is centering the margins. The reason why we are here right now is because we ignored what
was happening to tr
ans people. It did not start with the AI, it did not start with academia. It started with trans people. If we ignored the margins,
people will come for us. So I think that's the biggest
thing that you can do. You have to be there for people who have more
marginalization than you, so. - [Eileen] Thank you, hi, I am Eileen and I was struck by the
slide that had the statistic that of the very few black women who actually make it into medical school, it seemed that roughly only half of those actuall
y make it into the profession. So that being the case, being somebody who's made it through, can you talk a little bit
about what you would recommend supports be to increase those numbers? - Yeah, I can speak for myself and I think the reality that
is happening with medicine is also happening in life sciences. When it comes to support,
two things matter. Money and then the way
that you treat people. I appreciate Mary Cushman because she went beyond
the work or the confines of what you usually wo
uld
see a mentor do for somebody. I felt supported that way. Its also the treatment of people. People leave medicine and life sciences because of the way they are treated. At the beginning of my
talk, I mentioned trauma. I mentioned how you are made to feel like you don't belong in a space, how people are pushing you out. You have to have policies in place to make sure that people are accountable, that people are not feeling as though they don't belong into a space. And again, oftentimes these
a
re more personal things, but there are also
systemic things that happen when it comes to support. There are things that don't take into
account people's cultures, people's backgrounds, and
how they navigate the world. You have to be able to understand that the way that people
operate in medicine and in life sciences is going to be affected by the background. You have to make sure we
have a specific culture. Like the culture that exists
in academia and in medicine is oftentimes and at times not c
onducive, it goes against the culture of people that exist on the margins. So how do you change the
culture in the institution to make sure that it is
welcoming of everybody? - [Dr. Dougherty] Other
questions from the audience? If you're on Zoom, you
can use the QA function in order to ask questions. This has been a really
wonderful discussion. I think it's the
beginning of a discussion. I also wanna touch on something that I think you mentioned here and that we also talked
about this morning, w
hich is that developing community is a huge way to understand one another and also to, I'm trying to
work on my language around this because what I wanna say is combat and I wanna come away from that sort of militaristic language,
but a way to interact with and turn around some of that anti that you're talking about Dr. Cushman. - [Debora] And definitely
when it comes to community, and this is a conversation that we had. When it comes to community,
the community itself has to be based on love, a
ccountability and all of these different things. Academia is a community. The way that we treat our
mentees, people who are under us or who work for us, that matters. That's how you change the world. When I talk about the personal work, that personal work is going to matter when it comes to your
relationships with your mentees. And those mentees will
also treat other people the way that you treated them. So this is just one of the many ways you can change the culture
in academia and medicine. -
[Dr. Dougherty] So with that, I'm going to close this portion and say thank you so much Dr. Kamin Mukaz for sharing your wisdom,
for sharing your experience, for getting personal and
for challenging all of us. So we're going to move
on to the awards portion of our afternoon and we
just need Dr. Jo Conant to come to the podium and we also need to switch
over to the other slideshow. So give us one second. - [Bruce] Hey Emily. - [Dr. Conant] Awesome.
- [Bruce] Perfect. - All right, is the mic, oh,
it is on. Perfect, excellent. So it is now my pleasure to move on into the
awards ceremony portion of the celebration. Bestowing of awards
serves multiple purposes in academic medicine. Not only does it call out the achievements and contributions of individuals, but it also broadcasts
the individual's presence to a wider audience and is a signifier of
the regional, national, and international reputation
of the individual. The nominees received for
the Gender Equity Awards, all of whom are listed
in your program. It's on the back page, if
we flip that page over, we're stellar. It is truly a testament to the talent and commitment we have among us. Ultimately, the awards committee
created a slate of nominees and Dean Page had the difficult job of selecting the honorees. Presenting awards today
alongside Dean Tracy are Dr. Carr, professor of pharmacology, and the 2023 recipients
of the Polaris Award and Dr. Katanga, assistant
professor of cardiology and member of the Gender
Equity Steering
Committee and the 2023 recipient
of the Rising Star Award. Would you two like to come up and join us? - Thank you Dr. Conant. The first award is the
Gender Equity Champion Award. Equity and inclusion
are inextricably linked to UVM Larner College of
Medicine's mission of education, research and patient care. In recognition of that
mission, many college faculty, staff, students, and trainees are actively engaged in
championing equity and inclusion in multiple local, regional,
and global settings.
This award recognizes
Larner College of Medicine community members, faculty,
staff, and students who have demonstrated
outstanding commitment and service to the advancement of women and gender diverse populations beyond the scope of their job, area of research or training. This year, due to exceptional nominations, a faculty and a student
award are being bestowed. - Our first recipient
is Dr. Jennifer Hall. Dr. Hall's nominator notes
her many accomplishments in gender equity. Dr. Hall has sort
of chaired
the Vermont Women in Psychiatry since 2019. This program promotes collegiality and supports women in
psychiatry across the state. It also provides resources and
education on gender equity. She has served on the Elcon
Gender Equity Steering Committee Education Work Group as a faculty
representative since 2020. She's on the psychiatry
department DEI committee as well and is the go-to Resource
for gender equity in the department. She's also a member of
the Women's Interest Group of the A
merican Association
of Geriatric Psychiatry and on top of all of this, she
also serves as an ambassador for the Brave Enough Program which supports professional women, has conducted a specific
promotion workshop for women in psychiatry and has also served as a
mentor on the mindfulness at the Brave Enough conference in 2022, and has been a part of
the Women in Medicine and Science Peer Leadership Group. Overall, Dr. Hall is a superb
advocate for gender equity in the department, the
region, and h
er profession. Please join me in congratulating
Dr. Jennifer Hall. - So thank you so much for
this incredible honor and award and specifically I wanna thank Rob Altoff and the Department of
Psychiatry for nominating me as it's been a big passion of mine and certainly doing work within
the sphere of gender equity is what fills my cup every
single day, so thank you. - It's my pleasure to announce the second Gender Equity
Champion award for 2024 and it goes to Neeki Parsa, who is part of the Elcom
class of 2025. Their nominator, a fellow medical student speaks to their advocacy for gender equity and medical education. The nominator notes, Nikki's
eloquence and gregarious nature has made them an incredible
liaison and arbitrator. The project that they
spearheaded as a member of the AAMC Organization
of Student Representatives was called Metacognitive
Approach to Gender and Sex in a Medical School Curriculum. This project was presented at the AAMC Learn, Serve, Lead National Conference, and
then published in the
Journal of Medical Education and Curricular Development. In addition, Nikki founded and leads the Queer Health
Student Interest Group, has created a pronoun
workshop in the sim center, runs a newsletter about sex
and gender and medicine, as well as runs a sex
and gender journal club and organizes a faculty
panel with family medicine and ob-gyn on gender affirming care and serves as a mentor to three separate
non-binary medical students in the years below them. Outside of E
lcom, the list of accomplishments
becomes impossible to fit in a 250 word nomination form. But I would be remiss if I did not reflect on the multi-year project
they ran with 20 families with trans youth children and the incredible
impact the study has had. Beyond their accomplishments,
Neeki is kind and selfless and please join me in
congratulating Neeki Parsa. - Thank you, this is very
generous and humbling. The state of affairs for trans people often feels very discouraging, but importantly, I
grow more resilient as I meet more amazing people at UVM that remind me that people
care about gender disparities and want to collaborate on minimizing them and I'm in very inspiring company. Is especially wonderful
to hear this afternoon about how black feminist scholarship is at the foundations of intersectionality and each modern movement
for social justice owes so much to scholars
like Patricia Hill Collins and Kimberlé Crenshaw and the Combahee River Collective
and their predecessors. Enga
ging with this is a practice that collectively improves our world and also improves the
rigor of our practice of science and medicine and I'm grateful to learn
doctoring at an institution that platforms voices
like Dr. Kamin Mukaz. This is really great, thank you. - The next award is the Gender Equity
Outstanding Achievement in Medicine and Science Award. This award is given to a woman or gender diverse faculty member within the Larner College of Medicine who has demonstrated
outstanding achieve
ment in medicine and science through research, education, or service. Additionally, this
individual must be recognized at a national and or international level for their scientific medical achievements and serve as a role model to women or gender diverse community members at the Larner College of Medicine. Finally, awardees will have
demonstrated a commitment to advancing equity
and inclusion for women and gender diverse community members. - The 2024 Gender Equity
Outstanding Achievement in Medi
cine and Science
goes to Dr. Sarah Schlein. Dr. Schlein is a specialist
in Wilderness Medicine. Dr. Schlein's nominator
notes Dr. Schlein chairs the Women in Wilderness
Medicine Committee, a section of the Wilderness
Medicine Society. In this role, she has
created opportunities for mentorship for women members, supported women in
wilderness CME conferences and events and travel, develop programs to promote leadership and academic success with
scholarship opportunities and advancement pathways in
the field. She's also created and maintained
a women's speakers bureau and reviewed the state of
Wilderness Medicine Society for gender equity issues and address those issues with advocacy as well as specialty statements. She has authored the Wilderness
Medicine Society conferences diversity and inclusion policy, as well as three gender related
peer reviewed publications since 2022, including first authorship on one specifically
related to gender equity and membership, leadership
and award reco
gnition, and one on gender distribution
in scholarly authorship. She developed the Women
in Wilderness Medicine research working group,
specifically designed to support junior faculty and
institutions internationally in research and writing. And finally, Dr. Schlein helps lead the Women in Wilderness Medicine Leadership Training
program which began in 2020 to support leadership
and career development and to provide a place
for innovation and ideas, including topics of equity and inclusion, and f
or which she was awarded
the National Wilderness Medicine Society Ice Axe Award in 2021. Please congratulate Dr. Schlein
for this accomplishment. - Alright, so I get the mic and I see a lot of familiar faces, so bear with me while
I make a few remarks. Thank you for your kind words and also just to the whole committee to recognize the important work that all of us are doing in
the gender equity sphere. I have infinite gratitude and
humility standing up here, and it's really important
to me to ta
ke a moment to acknowledge my leaders, my mentors, and most importantly, my mentees. Dr. Herrington Ramsey, I wanna thank you so much for
supporting my farfetched ideas to do all these extra trainings
in wilderness medicine, to go to countless conferences and even more importantly,
support me subspecializing in wilderness and environmental medicine. There are no words to describe the amount of support that I've received, which is true for other faculty as well, financially funding, but also the
time and the encouragement to follow
our visions and our dreams through our prior division and our Department of Emergency Medicine. I also want to give enormous thanks to what the Wilderness
Medical Society as an entity has done to bolster and
support my own career. If I had not had the support
to attend conferences and make connections and find mentors, we would've not been able to
achieve the incredible strides that we've made for women and really all genders across the field in wilderness me
dicine. I specifically wanna give a
huge thanks to my own mentor and co-author Linda Keys. Linda is the former president of the Wilderness Medical Society and an editor for Annals
of Emergency Medicine and Linda has a leadership philosophy, well, that comes from the
history of black women, which is to like bring and
lift those with us as we climb. And Linda encapsulates that and that's what I have very much tried to do in my own career and when I connected with
her, it resonated so much that if
everything that we
do in our career as faculty, we are bringing mentees along with us, that becomes the most
fulfilling part of our job. I have so much thankfulness
for Dean Tracy, for Dean Page for just
giving me the opportunity to be faculty and to
serve in this community for our students because
it is our mentees by far that have had the greatest impact on my own career and my own work. When I am writing a paper and going through edits for the 15th time. But I have a medical student with me o
r a resident with me
who has this incredible, just like appreciation for
medicine and this zest for life. It makes it fun. But even what I have
found the most meaningful is the conversations that
happen afterward or in between about how do we live a meaningful life and how do we live our best lives in the like waves of practicing
and training in medicine, which is not always easy, right? But to be there for our mentors and I loved, we already
talked about that today, how important it is to be
th
e people for our mentors that we would want them to
be for their future mentees. So with that, I want to
leave us with the idea that let your work be
part of the solution. So when you have a project,
bring in learners with you and make sure they have a seat
at the table and then pause and stop talking and really listen and see them for who they are and I think that is how
we fix the leaky pipeline and make the future better
and brighter for all of us. Thank you. - We will now present the Polaris
Award for outstanding mentorship. Polaris, where the north
star is anchored at due north while the remainder of the
northern sky rotates around it and serves as a beacon
and directional point for those finding their way on a journey. The Polaris Award honors a Larner College of Medicine
faculty or staff member who provides outstanding,
formal or informal mentorship for Larner College of Medicine women and or gender diverse community members. - The 2024 Polaris Award
goes to Dr. Rebecca Wilcox.
Unfortunately, Dr. Wilcox
cannot be with us today, but we are wholeheartedly honoring her remarkable achievements and contributions to gender equity. Her nomination statement reads, I can't imagine a more deserving
person to be recognized for their commitment to mentorship
and advocacy for others. Dr. Wilcox has demonstrated
a long track record of formal and informal mentorship
to a wide variety of women and gender diverse community members. Going backwards in time, she's now the Associate
Dean
for faculty affairs. She's a perfect fit for this position and where she truly is
thriving and supporting and advocating for the
advancement of faculty. Prior to this role, she was
the vice chair for education in the Department of Pathology
and Laboratory Medicine, where she developed a faculty
promotion mentorship program, which pairs a faculty member who was starting the promotion process with a mentor whom can support
them through this process, breaking down barriers
and building support in a
scaffold for people
during the process. She has also been the
course director for NMGI and has mentored numerous
medical students, residents, as well as junior faculty along the way. As her CV demonstrates, she's had a longstanding
commitment to mentorship and is well recognized for
her continued education and supporting numerous awards. Please join me in congratulating
Dr. Rebecca Wilcox. - So Rebecca couldn't be here because she is taking care
of herself and her family, which is what we encou
rage
in our department, and she mentors others to do the same. As the 2020 recipient of this
award, I couldn't be prouder that one of my faculty is now
the recipient of this award and it's very nice, thank you. - The final award today is the Rising Star Emerging
Professional Award. This award recognizes a woman
or gender diverse faculty or staff member of the
Larner College of Medicine, who is in the early stage of their career and who demonstrates
excellence in contributions to students, collea
gues,
and or the institution in the areas of gender
equity and inclusion through service, program development, teaching research or beyond. The awardee also shows the
promise for future contributions and leadership in their field,
as well as in achieving goals for the advancement of
diversity, equity and inclusion. This year, due to exceptional nominations, two faculty awards are being bestowed. - The first 2024 Rising Star
award goes to Anya Jokela. Her nomination statement reads, Dr. Jokela, a
ssistant
professor of family medicine has demonstrated excellence
in contributions to learners, peer faculty, staff, and
those outside the institution through her leadership,
education, and scholarship in the area of gender affirming care. Dr. Jokela is the recipient of a family medicine scholarship gender affirming care collaboration, improving community awareness
and patient experiences through a medical home
for gender diversity. This interprofessional grant
enhances gender affirming care for
older teens and adults in
the primary care medical home, as well as community
awareness of resources for gender affirming care. She helped implement a
clinic-based training for family medicine in fostering a gender diverse
friendly clinical environment incorporating patient
perspectives into the training, helping to break down barriers to care for gender diverse patients in our primary medical care homes. Dr. Jokela has led the development of a statewide gender
affirming care task force, which
brings together a
wide variety of providers and care team members
from across the state to work on important issues
in gender affirming care. Even early in her career, Dr.
Jokela has led the task force with grace, maturity and commitment. In 2023, she was recognized by the Women and Gender Equity Center with the outstanding faculty award for significant contributions
to gender equity at UVM. Her work has truly had an
impact on gender affirming care and gender equity for our
patients, for colleag
ues and many others beyond the
walls of our institution. Please join me in
congratulating Dr. Jokela. - Thank you, this is truly an honor. It's also a great opportunity
to thank all the people who are in this room
today who gave me lectures when I was sitting probably
there behind Dr. Schlein maybe 10 or so years ago. So it's really a time warp here. I feel especially
grateful to be called out after our really meaningful
discussion just an hour ago about touching on some of the
most fundamental
challenges facing our country today. And to be highlighted is
potentially a tiny minuscule part of making our community better,
really feels like an honor. I'm set up by a lot of fantastic mentors that I think has been a
theme of this hour as well. I particularly wanna highlight mentorship from Dr. Laura McCray, who has a way of really building people up and setting them up for
success without letting on that that's part of the intention. So I hope for a mentor like
her for every new faculty. I'
m also really grateful to be practicing in a state like Vermont, where doing the work that brings me joy feels like a normal day of work as opposed to some security risk that it could be in another
part of our country. I'm grateful to the
Department of Family Medicine that has just embraced
gender affirming care as part of primary care and yes, we should make
this available to everyone and really invite all
patients into our practice. And then also to my clinic,
Dr. Reisman, Brian Shed for being
nimble with all my requests to get in the patients
that I really wanna see and have on my panel
even though we're closed. And so anyhow, a lot of things, but appreciate the moment to also just highlight the
importance of gender care in our community and I
appreciate this platform, as many people have said. - The second 2024 Rising Star award goes to Dr. Karine Sahakyan. Dr. Karine Sahakyan
recently began her career as an assistant professor on
the clinical scholar pathway with the Department of
Radiology in July, 2022, where she quickly stepped into the roles of vice chair of diversity,
equity and inclusion, as well as departmental DEI
co champion for radiology. She has already made
significant contributions to our department and institutions. Most notably, Dr. Sahakyan
has created and implemented new elective for third and
fourth year medical students as an initiative to bring
underrepresented students to Vermont. Accepted students would travel, have accommodations and
meals covered
for them for the duration of their rotation. She's organizing our next
diversity grand round speaker that will focus on changing
the workplace workforce with a particular emphasis
on gender diversity. Dr. Sahakyan was awarded the excellence in promoting
diversity, equity and inclusion by the Department of Radiology in 2023. She's also shown great strides
for the advancement of DEI within our department
UVM-MC and the university. I have no doubts that she
will enhance the DEI for all, as well as
provide valuable opportunities for underrepresented students. On a personal level, Dr. Sahakyan is widely regarded with
the Department of Radiology as being a steward advocate and role model for equitable treatment for all members of the radiology team. Please join me in congratulating
Dr. Karine Sahakyan. - Thank you very much. It's a great honor to be
here and receive this award. First of all, I want to thank our radiology department
chair, Dr. Kristen DeStigter for nominating me and providing
supportive environment, encouraging promotion
of culture of diversity in our department. I would also like to thank April Hendrick. I am very lucky to have
her as my teammate on DEI and she's very passionate and really committed to
her role as a DEI champion. Also, I would like to thank
Christine Boomer for her help and the entire radiology department for welcoming me as I'm relatively new and I hope together, we'll
make our workplace better. Thank you. - Thank you everyone for spending a part
of your afternoon with
us and engaging in discussion and contemplation on gender equity and honoring our colleagues
with these awards. It really means a lot to recognize the people
within our community who are doing amazing work and I think it stimulates
others to follow suit. I would ask that the
honorees, please stay with us so that we can get a photograph together. Dean Tracy, if you have time, I'd love for you to be part of that too. Please stay in touch with
the Gender Equity Initiative. Jo
in the Listserv. Look for emails that come
out from the Dean's office. On April 10th? April 10th is our next Gender
Equity Education series event. It's on menopause in the workplace, and we're inviting Claire Hardy, who's a researcher from
the UK to speak with us. She's a real international
expert on the topic, so please join us for that. Thank you and have a great afternoon.
Comments