Let’s Talk: Resident Directed Curriculum on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

Chinenye C. Nnoromele, MD (Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital/Harvard Medical School PM&R Program, Charlestown, Massachusetts); Cameron S. Olezene, MD; Ya-Ting Chen, MD; Berkenesh T. Gebrekristos, MD; Julie K. Silver, MD; Cheri Blauwet, MD

Meeting: AAPM&R Annual Assembly 2021

Categories: Practice Management, Leadership, and Quality Improvement (2021)

Session Information

Session Title: AA 2021 Virtual Posters - Practice Management, Leadership, and Quality Improvement

Session Time: None. Available on demand.

Disclosures: Chinenye C. Nnoromele, MD: No financial relationships or conflicts of interest

Objective: To develop and implement curriculum focused on the importance of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the medical community and formalize the discussions on DEI’s role within residency training and patient care. This curriculum also serves to improve the experience of individuals underrepresented in medicine in their medical training by creating an open dialogue within the residency program.

Design: A prospective quality improvement projectSetting : Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation (PM&R) Residency Program in an academic medical center.Participants : 21 PM&R residents.

Interventions: A series of quarterly pre-reading with relevant DEI articles followed by small group discussions on the articles as well as personal experiences.

Main Outcome Measures: Multiple surveys were used to identify participants’ knowledge, perception, and self-reflection prior to and after each small group discussion.

Results: Through this initiative, residents became more aware of implicit (unconscious) bias, different types of experiences that benefit some people while disadvantaging other individuals, and structural racism concepts. Overall, they reported learning to better appreciate the perceived interactions within the healthcare field. Average survey response rate was 72.6%. Among those who answered the surveys, 92% found the sessions to be successful at facilitating an open discussion about DEI with peer residents. 68.4% reported that they had seen patients being treated unfairly because of their race and/or ethnicity. 88.2% felt that they had a safe space to talk freely about their perspectives on sensitive topics. After the sessions, 81.8% recognized that discrimination or insensitive comments occurred more than they previously thought in physician-patient interactions. 92.3% also stated that the sessions helped provide them with tools to address their own implicit biases.Conclusions: Longitudinal small group, open dialogue discussions can be used as a reasonable method to discuss a breadth of DEI topics in residency and healthcare to facilitate change in perspectives, acknowledgement of various experiences, and to improve well-rounded patient care and staff interactions.

Level of Evidence: Level V

To cite this abstract in AMA style:

Nnoromele CC, Olezene CS, Chen Y, Gebrekristos BT, Silver JK, Blauwet C. Let’s Talk: Resident Directed Curriculum on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion [abstract]. PM R. 2021; 13(S1)(suppl 1). https://pmrjabstracts.org/abstract/lets-talk-resident-directed-curriculum-on-diversity-equity-and-inclusion/. Accessed May 12, 2025.

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