Chats for Change | Mount Sinai
Activities that spark conversations.
Fall/Winter 2023-24 (September-February )
Chats for Change Schedule
Let’s talk about the new schedule.
This season we are meeting every other week as opposed to weekly. Make sure to register today and add Chats for Change to your calendar.
You don’t want to miss any of these thought-provoking dialogues!
Let’s talk about the new series and guest facilitators.
Each month, starting in September, we will engage in a rich dialogue focused on two chapters from The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together by Heather McGhee. Join us for this powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color.
Hospital leaders from the Mount Sinai Health System (MSHS) are joining Chats for Change to co-facilitate a new Clinical Enterprise Deeper Dive Series. During these chats, hospital leaders will make visible any differences in clinical outcomes driven by race and ethnicity across the MSHS; explore the impact of larger local, regional, and national structures on the MSHS through an equity lens; and share how we are learning about differences in care and outcomes for our OB/Gyn and Cancer patients.
We are excited to also partner with Michele Gourley, MD; Christine Low, MSW; and Wendy Ramirez, MSW from Disability Services.
Chats for Change | Fall/Winter 2023
September 2023
Selling Race—Media Constructions of Race and Racism
In this country, media and advertising play a large role in constructing the narrative of racialization. From advertising messages to celebrity influence, join us as we discuss the impact of the media in selling the social construct of race.
Facilitator(s): Jenn Meyer, LMSW, MPH and Jay Johnson, CHES
September 5, 2023 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee | Chapters 1 & 2
Many white Americans view the world as a zero-sum game, a competition between themselves and people of color. They reject social policies that help nonwhite people, even though those policies actually benefit everybody. Conservative politicians, media figures, and billionaires stoke this white fear to win and maintain power, sustaining this political agenda and devastating America’s poor and middle class. Join us each month to discuss two chapters from The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. This month we will focus on “An Old Story: The Zero-Sum Hierarchy” and “Racism Drained the Pool”.
Facilitator(s): David Muller, MD and Leona Hess, PhD
September 19, 2023 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
October 2023
Why Indigenous People’s Day?
Indigenous People’s Day was first proposed by Indigenous people at a 1977 United Nations conference to counteract anti-Indigenous discrimination, as well as the false narrative that Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas, which had been inhabited for millennia by over 600 Indigenous nations. There have been only two proclamations by United States presidents to mark the day since, and it is still not acknowledged as a federal holiday. Join us as we explore the significance of the second Monday in October and the opportunity to uplift Native/Indigenous cultures.
Facilitator(s): Ashley Michelle Fowler, MEd, and Michele Gourley, MD
October 3, 2023 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
Mount Sinai Health System Clinical Enterprise Deeper Diver Series:
Understanding our Performance in Achieving Equitable Clinical Outcomes
As a health system, we cannot expect to deliver equitable clinical outcomes if we are unable to see our performance clearly. In this session, Mount Sinai Health System leaders will provide an overview of the effort to make visible any differences in clinical outcomes by race and ethnicity, and engage in a dialogue to explore how that information can be used to inform improvement strategies.
Facilitator(s):
Pamela Abner, Chief Diversity Operations Officer, Mount Sinai Hospitals
Doran Ricks, Vice President of Data Quality and Stewardship, MSHS
Vicki Lopachin, Chief Medical Officer, MSHS
October 17, 2023 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee | Chapters 3 & 4
Many white Americans view the world as a zero-sum game, a competition between themselves and people of color. They reject social policies that help nonwhite people, even though those policies actually benefit everybody. Conservative politicians, media figures, and billionaires stoke this white fear to win and maintain power, sustaining this political agenda and devastating America’s poor and middle class. Join us each month to discuss two chapters from The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. This month we will focus on “Going Without” and “Ignoring the Canary”.
Facilitator(s): David Muller, MD and Leona Hess, PhD
October 31, 2023 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
November 2023
Healing in Native Cultures
Native American traditional healing is identified by the National Institutes of Health/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) as “a whole medical system that encompasses a range of holistic treatments used by indigenous healers for a multitude of acute and chronic conditions or to promote health and wellbeing”. Join us as we explore the wide range of healing approaches in Native cultures and question why these methods are considered “alternative.”
Facilitator(s): Ashley Michelle Fowler, MEd, and Michele Gourley, MD
November 14, 2023 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee | Chapters 5 & 6
Many white Americans view the world as a zero-sum game, a competition between themselves and people of color. They reject social policies that help nonwhite people, even though those policies actually benefit everybody. Conservative politicians, media figures, and billionaires stoke this white fear to win and maintain power, sustaining this political agenda and devastating America’s poor and middle class. Join us each month to discuss two chapters from The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. This month we will focus on “No One Fights Alone” and “Never a Real Democracy”.
Facilitator(s): David Muller, MD and Leona Hess, PhD
November 28, 2023 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
December 2023
Mount Sinai Health System Clinical Enterprise Deeper Diver Series:
The Healthcare Macro Environment and Equitable Care and Outcomes
Our Mount Sinai Health System exists within a much larger local, regional, and national healthcare ecosystem. That system includes payment models, regulatory requirements, and other variables that all impact the degrees of freedom with which we can operate. In this session, we will explore these larger structures and dynamics through the lens of equity in order to gain insight into barriers and opportunities to advance more equitable care and outcomes.
Facilitator(s):
Jeremy Boal, Chief Clinical Officer, MSHS
Art Gianelli, Chief Transformation Officer, MSHS and President Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital
December 5, 2023 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee | Chapters 7 & 8
Many white Americans view the world as a zero-sum game, a competition between themselves and people of color. They reject social policies that help nonwhite people, even though those policies actually benefit everybody. Conservative politicians, media figures, and billionaires stoke this white fear to win and maintain power, sustaining this political agenda and devastating America’s poor and middle class. Join us each month to discuss two chapters from The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. This month we will focus on “Living Apart” and “The Same Sky”.
Facilitator(s): David Muller, MD and Leona Hess, PhD
December 19, 2023 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
January 2024
Upstream/Downstream
When talking about systems of oppression, it is important to connect the upstream system with its downstream effects. Systemic forces like racism, classism, and sexism have real-life consequences for people who are marginalized in their everyday lives. Join us for the Upstream/Downstream series as we connect the dots between upstream systems that create disadvantages and their downstream effects.
Facilitator(s): Jenn Meyer, LMSW, MPH and Jay Johnson, CHES
January 16, 2024 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee | Chapters 9 & 10
Many white Americans view the world as a zero-sum game, a competition between themselves and people of color. They reject social policies that help nonwhite people, even though those policies actually benefit everybody. Conservative politicians, media figures, and billionaires stoke this white fear to win and maintain power, sustaining this political agenda and devastating America’s poor and middle class. Join us each month to discuss two chapters from The Sum of Us by Heather McGhee. This month we will focus on “The Hidden Wound” and “Solidarity Divided”.
Facilitator(s): David Muller, MD and Leona Hess, PhD
January 30, 2024 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
February 2024
Mount Sinai Health System Clinical Enterprise Deeper Diver Series:
Understanding and Advancing Equitable Outcomes for our OB/Gyn and Cancer Patients
In this session, Health System leaders from OB/Gyn and Cancer Care will share how they and their colleagues are learning about differences in care and outcomes for our patients and engage in a dialogue with participants about ways in which we can all best use this information to inform improvement efforts.
Facilitator(s):
Toni Stern, MD, System Vice-Chair for Quality, Clinical Transformation, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Mount Sinai Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Science.
Cardinale Smith, MD, PhD, Chief Medical Officer, Tisch Cancer Hospital and Chief Quality Officer for Oncology, MSHS
February 13, 2024 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
Different Perspectives for Understanding Disability
How people think about disability affects how they feel about disability. Varying perspectives on disability can be categorized into three overarching models — moral, medical, and social. Join us as we take a deeper look at these models and apply them to our work and learning environments.
Facilitator(s): Christine Low, MSW, Wendy Ramirez, MSW, and Leona Hess, PhD
February 27, 2024 | 12-1 pm | Join us on Zoom.
Chats for Change is built on the notion that in order to respond to racism and be anti-racist we must engage in dialogue, learning, and action.
If you’ve attended Chats for Change in the past or if you are curious about the experience, we invite you to join us as we continue to engage in dialogue, work towards a common understanding, and contribute our best thinking, knowing that other peoples’ reflections will help improve our thinking rather than undermine it. We are committed to engaging in dialogue in order to reveal our assumptions and biases for self-evaluation.
These sessions are intended for the Mount Sinai Health System community of students, faculty, and staff. After registering for any of the sessions above you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting, including an option to add the invitation to your calendar. None of these sessions will be recorded.
If you are interested in participating in Chats for Change sessions that are open to the public, join us here.