Psychiatry Diversity Leadership in Academic Medicine: Guidelines for Success

As DEI leaders at major academic psychiatry programs across the United States, we recognize the importance of these positions and advocate for increased support for our activities. Diversity improves productivity, supports recruitment and retention, fosters enhanced innovation, and promotes a more i...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American journal of psychiatry 2021-03, Vol.178 (3), p.224-228
Main Authors: Jordan, Ayana, Shim, Ruth S, Rodriguez, Carolyn I, Bath, Eraka, Alves-Bradford, Jean-Marie, Eyler, Lisa, Trinh, Nhi-Ha, Hansen, Helena, Mangurian, Christina
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Academic achievement
Academic departments
African Americans
Black Lives Matter movement
COVID-19
Faculty, Medical - organization & administration
Faculty, Medical - standards
Female
Humans
Inequality
Leadership
Medicine
Morbidity
Pandemics
Physicians, Women - organization & administration
Productivity
Psychiatry
Psychiatry - education
Psychiatry - organization & administration
Racism
Recruitment
Trauma
United States
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Summary:As DEI leaders at major academic psychiatry programs across the United States, we recognize the importance of these positions and advocate for increased support for our activities. Diversity improves productivity, supports recruitment and retention, fosters enhanced innovation, and promotes a more inclusive workforce climate. International protests centering on the Black Lives Matter movement--triggered by the recent murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, and George Floyd, underscored by a COVID-19 pandemic with racial inequities in morbidity and mortality--have resulted in an urgent need for psychiatry departments to reexamine and commit to fully supporting these leadership positions. Academic psychiatry must acknowledge the role that our field has played in creating and perpetuating racist structures and ideas. From this place of recognition, DEI leaders are uniquely poised to use their expertise in understanding attitudes, emotions, behavioral changes, and trauma in order to move toward reconciliation.
ISSN:0002-953X
1535-7228
DOI:10.1176/appi.ajp.2020.20091371