Message from our Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
Dear all,
Never has there been a time when we have been asked to question so deeply who we are at our core and how we wish to weave our life stories, our humanity, our morality, our compassion, our very essence into the fabric of the community we wish to build. The COVID pandemic and rising hate crimes served to highlight the racial, ethnic, gender, and socio-economic disparities and tensions that plague our global family. Now, more than ever, we look to our academic communities in the sciences and humanities to provide the data and the resources we need to rise together.
We DO NOT discriminate on the basis of differences in age, ability, gender identity and expression, sex, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, religion, immigration status, sexual orientation. We promote and seek to attract and educate trainees, faculty, and staff who will make the population of health care professionals and our health care workforce representative of the national population.
We are broad in our life journeys and life stores, but we are beautifully defined in our unity. We must celebrate the undeniable fact that the power of each of our life threads weaves strength into the fabric of our community. In this spirit, we welcome everyone to explore and apply to all programs which we offer regardless of their unique background and to grow and learn together in our academic communities.
Ann Caroline Fisher, MD
Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
Office of Faculty Development and Diversity (OFDD) Liaison
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The OFDD Liaisons are appointed by School of Medicine Clinical Department Chairs to serve as departmental representatives that liaise between the Chairs, members of their specific department, and the OFDD to assist with faculty concerns, ideas, and the advancement of excellence at Stanford School of Medicine. Dr. Fisher works directly with our Chair, Dr. Jeffrey Goldberg, to enhance faculty development and leadership in the department, at Stanford University, and around the world. We have faculty participating in the Early Career AAMC Women's forum leadership training, K08 grant-writing workshops, and other venues. We host regular Grand rounds for faculty and staff on topics such as diversity, community, and unconscious bias. We hold ourselves to the highest standards when it comes to creating a healthy, inclusive, and supportive culture. Our department regularly reviews a diversity dashboard, and ensures our search committees—from resident to faculty searches—review best practices for recruitment and retention of faculty. For our department, diversity drives excellence.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core values at the Stanford School of Medicine and Stanford Hospital and Clinics. The Stanford Department of Ophthalmology believes that diversity is a key factor in driving excellence and innovation. Diversity encompasses and is not limited to differences in gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. We are committed to recruiting people with a variety of backgrounds and life experiences and training them to be leaders at the forefront of innovation in teaching, research and patient care.
Dr. Angela Elam Grand Rounds Presentation
Achieving Health Equity in Ophthalmology – The Time Is Now
OFDD Liaison
Ann Caroline Fisher, MD
Director of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion
Read statements from our leading academic organizations:
A study published in Ophthalmology demonstrated representation of URM’s in the different medical specialties. The study used data from American Association of Medical Colleges and revealed that within academic institutions in ophthalmology, 7.5% of clinical chairs were URM, and only 6.8% of ophthalmology faculty were URM. The full study can be viewed at: Fairless EA, Nwanyanwu KH, Forster SH, Teng CC, Ophthalmology Departments Remain Among the Least Diverse Clinical Departments at US Medical Schools, Ophthalmology (2021), doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ophtha.2021.01.006.
We acknowledge that these numbers clearly indicate a disparity, and we are committed to building a community that is more representative of our global community.
There are fewer URM students and faculty in surgical subspecialties than there are in other disciplines of medicine. We believe and hope that if we explore racial and gender disparities in the surgical subspecialties and highlight them to our trainees and future applicants, we can motivate greater interest for URM applicants in these fields. With this in mind, the Department of Ophthalmology engages faculty across Stanford to discuss racial and gender disparities in their respective surgical areas or other clinic- or procedure-driven subspecialties, and educate our faculty and our trainees in fellowship, residency, and medical school.
OFDD Community Support Initiative
BAY AREA OPHTHALMOLOGY COURSE (BAOC)
· Bay Area Ophthalmology Course Scholarship (BAOC) Information
The Stanford Department of Ophthalmology is committed to ensuring that our field of ophthalmology and vision research is representative of the population we treat. We are aware that because ophthalmology is an early match, often students learn about the field later in their medical school training or not at all.
We welcome anyone with an interest in ophthalmology to apply for a BAOC scholarship. In particular, we would like to encourage third- and fourth-year medical students, ophthalmology residents and fellows, and practicing ophthalmologists from backgrounds that are, broadly defined, underrepresented in medicine to apply for the BAOC scholarship.
We do not discriminate on the basis of differences in age, ability, gender identity and expression, ethnicity, race, socioeconomic status, religion, immigration status, or sexual orientation.
Disclaimer: The scholarship covers the registration fee and may provide a partial living stipend.