Bio
Becky Blankenburg, MD, MPH is the Associate Dean of Graduate Medical Education and Designated Institutional Official at Stanford. She has most recently served as the Assistant Dean of Graduate Medical Education, Associate Chair of Education in Pediatrics, and Director of the Pediatrics Coaching Program. In addition, she has served in residency leadership for 13 years (as Stanford Pediatrics Residency Program Director and Associate Program Director) and fellowship leadership (developed, founded, and co-led the Stanford Pediatric Hospital Medicine Fellowship). Nationally, she served as the President of the Association of Pediatric Program Directors (2020-2022) and led collaborative teams to improve diversity, inclusivity, and belonging in GME, curricular reform, recruitment, and workforce issues. Her educational research interests focus on building a more diverse, inclusive and equitable learning environment and helping learners develop a sense of belonging, professional identity formation, and competence through longitudinal coaching and scholarly mentorship.
Specific studies/areas of interest include:
(1) Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging:
(a) Leadership Education in Advancing Diversity (LEAD) Program - She co-developed and is studying an innovative GME approach to improving diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Now in its 8th year, the LEAD Program is a 10-month longitudinal leadership program for residents, fellows, faculty, and educational coordinators across GME to promote leadership skills in improving diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice. Initial studies focused on a program evaluation of the LEAD program, impact on underrepresented in medicine (UIM) LEAD Scholars (residents and fellows), and impact on UIM LEAD Faculty.
(b) PROMISE Study - The PROMISE Study is a national quantitative and qualitative study of underrepresented in medicine (UIM) Pediatrics and Med/Peds Residents' sense of belonging in residency and individual and institutional drivers of belongingness.
(c) APPD Confronting Racism Action Team - She led the APPD Confronting Racism Action Team nationally for the past 4 years, which has 16 subcommittees developing new approaches in 3 main areas: (i) Improving our Organizational Infrastructure to be Actively Anti-Racist; (ii) Building Inclusive Learning Environments and Anti-Racism Training for Residents/Fellows/Faculty/Staff; and (iii) Developing Mentoring/Sponsorship Pathways for Underrepresented in Medicine learners, faculty and staff.
(2) Coaching: Dr. Becky Blankenburg and Dr. Carrie Rassbach developed the first GME Coaching Program in the United States in 2013. Dr. Blankenburg leads the Stanford Pediatrics Residency Coaching Program and co-leads a national collaborative of GME Coaching Programs. Coaching is an innovative approach to support longitudinal learner development, through helping residents develop skills of lifelong learning, self-reflection, and goal-setting. This program pairs a faculty coach with ten residents, who they follow for all three years. She is studying the impact of coaching on residents' professional identity formation and belongingness.
