2024 Diversity Forum: Seeking Justice

Friday, January 19, 2024, 8:00 a.m.–4:45 p.m., Hybrid
Rosalind Franklin University
Innovation Research Park: Monica Ply Innovation Hub 120 IRP
or via Zoom

A forum of community-led presentations and guest speakers centered on the theme of justice organized by the Division of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Rosalind Franklin University.

Agenda

Time	Session (details below table)
8:00–8:30 a.m.	Welcome and Introduction
8:40–9:40 a.m.	Let’s Talk About It: The Art, the Artists and the Racial Justice Movement on Madison’s State Street
9:50–10:20 a.m.	The Teaching Happens Both Ways: Transforming Medical Education through a Co-created Faculty-Student-Community Health Equity Course
10:30–11:00 a.m.	Psychiatry-informed Facilitation of JEDI Dialogue and Crisis Response Groups: Educator Perspective
11:10 a.m.–noon	The Wording Matters: Fostering Belonging and Justice through Inclusive Language and Writing
12:10–1:10 p.m.	Keynote Presentation: Weight-Based Discrimination Isn't a Health Question, It's a Human Rights Question
1:20–2:20 p.m.	The State of Asian American Health: Unveiling Disparities and the Importance of Culturally-Appropriate Patient Education and Community Partners
2:30–3:30 p.m.	Promoting Maternal Health Equity and Justice in Lake County
3:40–4:40 p.m.	Medicine, Nazism, and the Holocaust: Learning from the Past and Preparing for the Future
4:40–4:45 p.m.	Closing

Keynote Speaker

• “Weight-Based Discrimination Isn't a Health Question, It's a Human Rights Question”
• 12:10–1:10 p.m.
• The current prevailing debate about weight boils down to a reductive referendum on health. In this talk, Virgie Tovar offers a counter-query: What is the moral imperative if we accept that weight bias is a pressing human rights issue and current weight-based medical approaches have been correlated with body image disturbances, the development of eating disorders, the decreased likelihood of medical workers providing preventive care due to stigma, and an increased likelihood of higher weight patients delaying care? Tovar is a lecturer, Yale Poynter Fellow in Journalism, contributor for Forbes.com, and is the author of three books on the topics of weight discrimination and body image: You Have the Right to Remain Fat, The Self-Love Revolution: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color, and The Body Positive Journal.
• Speaker: Virgie Tovar

Welcome and Introduction

8:00–8:30 a.m.

Wendy Rheault, PT, PhD, FASAHP, FNAP, DipACLM
President and CEO, Professor Physical Therapy and Interprofessional Education, Rosalind Franklin University

Eric G. Williams, PhD
Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Rosalind Franklin University

Sessions

“Let’s Talk About It: The Art, the Artists and the Racial Justice Movement on Madison’s State Street”

“The Teaching Happens Both Ways: Transforming Medical Education through a Co-created Faculty-Student-Community Health Equity Course”

• 9:50–10:20 a.m.
• In 2021 faculty and students at RFU co-created a required longitudinal health equity curriculum spanning all four years of medical school at CMS, with an evolving focus on community voices. The course creates an innovative learner-focused and community-centered experience in small group discussions, forums, and an engaging project-centered advocacy project designed to illuminate structural and social determinants of health. This presentation will describe several approaches to teaching health equity in a health professions curriculum, including small group discussions, project engagement, and forums. We will highlight the fundamentally transformational approach of centering community voices in a health professions curriculum.
• Speakers: Dr. Melissa Chen and Dr. Hillary Mowbray

“Psychiatry-informed Facilitation of JEDI Dialogue and Crisis Response Groups: Educator Perspective”

• 10:30–11:00 a.m.
• Learner wellness and empathic engagement across all segments of the university family continue to increase in importance, in an environment of ever-escalating social tensions. Here, we will draw from the natural overlap between group dynamics and psychotherapy, to enhance the training of group facilitators and your own facilitation skills for "difficult discussions" groups. (Eg, JEDI Dialogue / Crisis Processing.). Target audience may include faculty, administration, faculty development, and interested learners.
• Speaker: Dr. Paul Hung

“The Wording Matters: Fostering Belonging and Justice through Inclusive Language and Writing”

• 11:10–noon
• Pursuing justice in higher education means removing long standing barriers to learning. In this interactive session, we will explore how the language and tone we use in written documents (e.g. syllabus, assessments, etc), as well as the ways we provide written feedback on our students’ work, can have an impact on our students’ learning and sense of belonging. We will also offer participants guidance on how to write syllabi, assignments, and feedback to foster a more inclusive learning environment.
• Speakers: Dr. Susanna Calkins and Dr. Margaret Gonzales

“The State of Asian American Health: Unveiling Disparities and the Importance of Culturally-Appropriate Patient Education and Community Partners”

• 1:20–2:20 p.m.
• This presentation aims to develop a deep understanding of the health complexities within the Asian American community. It will highlight the unique health, health research, and healthcare disparities experienced by Asian Americans, potential opportunities for culturally-sensitive patient education and engagement, importance of community health partners and community-based health initiatives, and provide insight into the outcomes of established initiatives.
• Speakers: Angela Chen, CMS Class of 2026, and Run Kuang, CMS Class of 2026

“Promoting Maternal Health Equity and Justice in Lake County”

• 2:30–3:30 p.m.
• Maternal mortality rates in the US have been increasing over the past 2 decades while global rates are declining. Moreover, AA maternal mortality rates are 3-6 X higher in some states in the US. The Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) today released the third edition of the Illinois Maternal Morbidity and Mortality Report, covering maternal deaths occurring for Illinois residents during 2018-2020. Among the key findings are that Black women continue to die at disparately higher rates due to medical causes including cardiovascular disease and pre-existing chronic medical conditions; and social determinants of health such as structural racism, implicit bias, and the overall cause of pregnancy-related death in Illinois--- substance use disorder. These disturbing trends maternal morbidity and mortality trends have provoked a national call to action to immediately address these health-related inequities which are the root causes of maternal morbidity and mortality.
• Speakers: Dr. Myrtis Sullivan, Ann Borders, MD, MPH, Dr. Monique Jones, Damaris Montano, RN, and Brenda Reyes, RN

“Medicine, Nazism, and the Holocaust: Learning from the Past and Preparing for the Future”

• 3:40–4:40 p.m.
• The history of medical involvement during the Holocaust has important and meaningful implications for present and future healthcare providers. This presentation will review the physician’s role in the Holocaust and the relevance for current and future healthcare providers and educators, including navigating and managing the ethical challenges in clinical practice, caring for vulnerable patients, incorporating this history into medical education, addressing and the responsibility for all medical professionals to uphold human rights and combat antisemitism, racism, and other forms of discrimination.
• Speakers: Dr. Jeanette Morrison, Dr. Biana Kotlyar, Alexis Adams, Scholl College Class of 2027, and Dora Tabachnick, CMS Class of 2026