Blogs
Update on Sphere Interactive Sessions: Process for Learning What Needs to Change
After the June sphere interactive sessions with faculty, students, staff, and other stakeholders, the spheres met as a group to reflect on where they were at in the process of identifying what needs to change. Check it out. Admissions Sphere In Admissions we are...
The Landscape of the System: Where Change Happens
Based on the problem areas that were previously identified by students, we mapped those on the functional areas of ISMMS to identify six spheres: 1. Admissions 2. Clinical 3. Curricular Affairs 4. Students 5. Student Affairs 6. Student Resources All of the RBI...
Rethinking with Systems Thinking
We can all agree that telling people to change the way they act or talking about how we envision change isn’t sufficient. If we want to change behavior, we need to change the system that drives that behavior. A systems thinking perspective forces us to look at the...
Town Hall: Nine Questions; Nine Answers
On Tuesday, March 20, the Department of Medical Education hosted a Town Hall to announce a clear message about racism and bias: The time to change is now. After the event, we distributed a post-event survey eliciting your feedback. Based on the post-town hall survey...
The Time to Change is Now: RBI Town Hall
On March 20, 2018 the Department of Medical Education hosted a town hall meeting in an effort to share our approach to the next phase of the Racism and Bias Initiative—the people and process side of the transformational change. The town hall presented a unique...
Leadership Letters: AOA, Equity, and Wellness
The Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (ISMMS) holds among its highest values academic rigor, social justice, equity, and collaboration. We pride ourselves on being a school that mitigates unhealthy competition among students. We understand the limited value of...
Dean Charney on Undoing Racism and Bias
Combating systemic racism and bias often begins with addressing it on an individual level. We recently caught up with Dean Charney to provide his lens on racism and bias in our community, and what lengths we are willing to go to undo its effects in the health...
Future Focus: Incorporating People and Process—What’s on the Horizon?
Since the initiative’s launch in 2015, we have undertaken several RBI activities and endeavors that have primarily addressed recommendations related to racism and bias content in curricular and student affairs, admissions, and in other functional areas of the school....
Looking Back to Move Forward: Steps to Combat Racism and Bias—A Review
As you know, the Department of Medical Education has launched several initiatives over the past few years to raise awareness of and systematically combat racism and bias in our learning environment. The following provides a glimpse of preliminary actions taken during...
Change Management Meets the Racism and Bias Initiative | An Introduction to the Methodology from Dr. Leona Hess
A New York-native, Dr. Hess is a systems thinker and transformational change strategist. Joining Med Ed in October of last year, her primary role is to develop and apply a Change Management methodology to the Racism and Bias Initiative (RBI). By doing so she will...