Diversity

We have become active participants at both the LMSA and SNMA regional and national conferences, as well as our annual UCLA Road to Residency event.

Expanding our presence both in person and virtually has helped us get our name out to URM applicants nationwide. We are actively working to ensure that our incoming classes reflect the diversity of our patient population.

"They put their money where their mouth was! The formation of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Office run by our sensational EM faculty member Dr. Briggs-Malonson) and the Justice, Equity, and Diversity Office was a direct and powerful response to the needs of the UCLA and broader Los Angeles community." 

Two of our residents, Dr. Chase Richard (Class of 2023) and Dr. Reza Hessabi (Class of 2024), are on the inaugural board of the Minority Health Organization. This group serves to provide community, mentorship, and professional development opportunities to all URM residents at UCLA. In addition, the UCLA URM community has a Whatsapp group which serves as our nexus for sharing triumphs, challenges, support, and laughter.

The UCLA-OV EM program is committed to outreach and pipeline mentorship with students of all ages. We are working on a partnership with the UCLA Pre-Medical Enrichment Program (PREP), which is a program designed to provide premedical students from disadvantaged backgrounds with the means to strengthening their ability and readiness to study medicine. Some of our faculty were grads of PREP! Our mission is to pair PREP students with EM faculty and resident mentors, have talks on subjects like, "Doing Well in Medical School and in Residency," and introduce students to various medical procedures. Were also hoping to expand shadowing opportunities in the future.

Residents and faculty are expanding our residency program's involvement with local K-12 education and developing curricula around issues like eating healthy and introducing students to medical procedures and disease processes.

"We're currently working with the school of medicine to support UCLA PREP students who traditionally spend the summer on our hospital campus. Were planning a longitudinal curriculum for these students involving both in-person and online components to reach as many people as possible. We'll also be moving into the public school space over the coming year. We're going to get residents and faculty in front of grade school students in communities traditionally under-resourced and underrepresented in medicine to deliver a combination of content and mentorship designed to help show them the path to higher education and get them excited about medicine. There's a lot of excitement and momentum in this space and we're looking forward to expanding our involvement." 

UCLA Emergency Medicine was one of the first in the nation to develop a distinct section dedicated to Health Equity. Led by Dr. Breena Taira, the Director of Social Medicine at Olive View Medical Center (OVMC), we have amazing faculty, fellows, and residents who are involved in health equity through International and Domestic Health Equity and Leadership (IDHEAL). Dr. Taira drives many of the hospital-wide and DHS health initiatives in Los Angeles. Major areas of focus include language justice, a free cell phone program at OVMC, free produce distribution, medical-legal partnership, asylum exams, border health projects, and the OVMC trauma recovery center.

Dr. Maureen McCollough is a leader in substance use disorder treatment and runs the Bridge program at OVMC. The mission of the Bridge program is to de-stigmatize substance use and reframe how providers manage addiction disorders with an emphasis on harm-reduction models such as medication-assisted treatment.

Several other initiatives involve improving health education internationally, homeless outreach, incarceration and health justice, and much more!

"Building on our Bridge Program for those with opioid use disorder, we launched a new program that offers medicine, brief therapy, and accompaniment to people seeking treatment for alcohol use disorder. To our knowledge we are one of the first EDs in the nation to introduce the first-line medication for alcohol use disorder (naltrexone) to patients while they are in the ED. Introducing substance use treatments in a new setting like the ED is a complex and iterative process, and we continue to learn how to improve our services through concurrent research with patients and providers about their experiences in both receiving and delivering substance use treatment in the ED. Look out for our publications and read more on ovmcbridge.org." 

Social EM is an important part of resident education at UCLA. In addition to the work being done through the IDHEAL section and fellowship, we have Social EM didactics throughout the year during weekly conferences, and we are also proud to have a dedicated Social EM rotation! It is a mandatory two-week rotation during the R2 year and includes both in-person and didactic components. Residents have the opportunity to go out with the UCLA Street Medicine team, learn about harm reduction techniques by participating in suboxone clinics and a needle exchange, participate in border health opportunities, and much more!

"Our Social EM rotation was a resident initiative! We presented the idea to our program leadership and they immediately signed on and gave us the resources, support, and space to make this possible. UCLA is super supportive of its residents and new ideas."

Yes! UCLA has just launched the UCLA Health Homeless Healthcare Collaborative (HHC). The HHC will deploy fully equipped mobile healthcare units staffed by an interprofessional care team to provide high-quality, human-centered, equitable primary and urgent care services to people experiencing homelessness throughout the greater Los Angeles community. Resident physicians of all levels are able to participate in Street Medicine in their free time, but there is dedicated time set aside for Street Medicine as a part of our Social EM rotation.

One of our faculty members, Dr. Hannah Janeway, is the director for the Refugee Health Alliance. Residents can get involved in advocacy remotely and also have opportunities to volunteer at the Refugee Health Alliance clinic at San Ysidro Border Crossing in Tijuana every Saturday.

We have a resident-run Community Engagement committee! Some of the projects that our committee is working on this year include produce distribution at Olive View, donating surplus food in the cafeteria, street medicine/harm reduction opportunities, mentorship at local high schools, and more!

We are committed to improving education around gender non-conforming, gender non-binary, and transgender patient care for residents, attendings, RNs, and techs in the emergency department. Education on gender diverse care is included in our Social EM rotation. Additionally, our residents and faculty have a dedicated UCLA-OV EM LGBTQ+ group that has regular socials!

Residents and faculty in our Women & Gender Minority Group have get togethers for lunch or dinner. This gives our residents a great opportunity to connect with faculty members, talk about wellness, and discuss issues that gender minorities face in medicine.

There are multiple ways to get involved with advocacy as a resident. Within the UCLA Health System, there is UACT, a trainee-led, faculty-supported advocacy hub for UCLA residents and fellows focused on structural inequities and barriers to equitable care. We also have our union, the Committee of Interns and Residents, which has a robust political action committee, where we determine as residents what bills to write or support, and which political candidates to support. Residents have gotten to speak with presidential candidates and testify on bills.

Faculty members are involved in many different aspects of advocacy - from fighting against police brutality, to working with asylum seekers, to addressing homelessness within our community, to working on the addiction crisis, and much more! We may not have faculty working on every issue, but the beauty of this program is that you can get the support you need to work on the things you care about.

"This residency encourages and makes it easy to join in on or continue work in outside organizations. I have been given the time to continue my policy work on the state and national scale, sitting on the California ACEP board as the resident member, to sitting on multiple California Medical Association councils, to serving on the American Medical Association resident and fellows governing council, helping to direct the policy direction of our organized medicine groups. I've also been able to be an active member of the union, working to improve resident working conditions on a local and national scale. We have leaders in various aspects of medicine who can help you or connect you with our vast alumni network who can help open doors." -- Dr. Anna Yap, Class of 2022