Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility

We enjoy research and teaching in the highly diverse setting at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine and are proud to train and practice at Boston Medical Center caring for a diverse patient population. Our goal is for our trainees, staff, and faculty to reflect that diversity. We believe that this is central to providing excellent patient care, making impactful research discoveries, and creating a dynamic and inclusive learning environment.

The Pulmonary Center’s Racial Equity Committee was founded with the mission to raise awareness, activity, and efforts related to issues surrounding diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. Throughout the year, this committee provides monthly educational, brainstorming, workshop, and action sessions. These sessions involve the entire Pulmonary Center community (clinical and research arms including clinical trainees, PhD students, post-doctoral fellows, staff, and all faculty within the department). Topics have included recruitment and support of diverse faculty, training and educational activities that empower diverse learners, identifying and countering systemic racism, implicit bias, white privilege, health treatment disparities, redlining, identity as a barrier, career development through an equity lens, and more.

Driving forward research within pulmonary and critical care medicine is a central objective of the Pulmonary Center and our fellowship training programs. We believe that being engaged in high quality research while keeping our diverse and safety net patient population at the center of these endeavors is vital to providing equitable medical care. We are committed to ensuring that our patients are included in research and have access to cutting edge clinical advances. Our faculty and fellows are engaged in research with a health equity focus, guided by principles of social justice.

Our training activities include special emphases on guiding those from groups under-represented in research fields into successful careers in biomedical science. A key to the long-term success of our T32 training program, supported by the NIH to train researchers in pulmonary and critical care sciences, has been our consistent emphasis on enrolling and providing outstanding outcomes for trainees from groups underrepresented in the biomedical research field. Recognizing the need to broaden awareness of and interest in biomedicine, we are engaged in community outreach programs to help earlier learners (in college or high school) recognize the excitement and opportunity of biomedical careers. The science workforce needs to be more diverse, and we are working to make that happen.

Additional Institutional Resources

Community Catalyst Center (C3)

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Boston Medical Center

Diversity in the Department of Medicine

Diversity & Inclusion at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine

Faculty Development and Diversity Program

gPLUS (LGBTQIA+ students) community network

Graduate Medical Sciences (GMS) DEIA programs

Health Equity Accelerator

Marcelle M. Willock, MD, Faculty Development & Diversity Program

Minority and International Scientists Organization (MISO)

Summer Training as Research Scholars (STaRS) Program

Office of Minority Physician Recruitment

Women’s Leadership Program