Internal Medicine-Pediatrics Residency Greenville - Diversity, Inclusion and Equity

Diversity, inclusion, and equity (DEI) are not simply buzz words to us. The Prisma Health Internal Medicine-Pediatrics residency program believes DEI is necessary to train physicians to deliver exceptional, culturally compassionate care for diverse populations, whether it be differences in age, ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, physical ability, or socioeconomic background.

Our Med-Peds, Internal Medicine, and Pediatric Residency leadership and residents are heavily involved in the Graduate Medical Education DEI subcommittee, meeting monthly and making system-wide initiatives. Our Med-Peds residents have become vocal champions of DEI in the clinical learning environment and beyond.

Our Med-Peds program strives to recruit residents from diverse backgrounds, reflective of the community we serve. Currently, 24% percent of our residents are underrepresented in medicine. Our diverse resident classes share new ideas, lived experiences, and unique perspectives that have improved our resident training and overall patient care.

We recognize diversity is not about our numbers or percentages. We are striving to build and update our anti-oppressive curriculum and DEI initiatives every day. Below are specific initiatives and recent accomplishments, arranged under the Six Pillars as delineated by phase one of the University of California – San Francisco – Differences Matter Campaign.

Leadership

Program Leadership Engagement

The Med-Peds, Pediatric and Internal Medicine program directors are involved with the GME DEI subcommittee. As a member of this committee, associate program director, Dr. Sen Ravindran drafted the Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion (JEDI) award. The first annual awards were given at the GME Graduation Ceremony in 2022.

Program director, Dr. Sarah Hinton, and Med-Peds faculty member, Dr. Michael Guyton-Nunley provide LGBTQ+ healthcare to adolescents and young adults

Associate program director, Dr. Senthuran Ravindran, serves as the faculty advisor to the resident led Pediatric Youth Immersion Camp of the Upstate.

Resident Leadership

Med-Peds residents are deeply involved in DEI efforts through the GME Resident DEI Committee and Categorical Program DEI Task forces through mentorship, community outreach and media advocacy. Kimberly Okafor (Med-Peds residency, Class of 2022) and Brittany Williams (Pediatric residency, Class of 2022) were recipients of the first annual 2021-2022 JEDI award.

Education

LGBTQ+ Educational Opportunities

Adolescent Medicine Rotation – This rotation is directed by Med-Peds faculty member and program graduate, Dr. Michael Guyton-Nunley. During this rotation, residents care for patients from diverse backgrounds and learn more about comprehensive LGBTQ+ care.
LGBTQ+ Elective – Residents can participate in an LGBTQ+ elective to further develop their skills in providing comprehensive LGBTQ+ care.
Journal Club – Our program has utilized Journal Club as an opportunity to explore topics related DEI. In 2021, we moderated a journal club on primary care considerations for transgender and gender-diverse youth. At each journal club, we explore DEI issues related to our clinical topic.
Advocacy – Residents gain experience in advocacy through the longitudinal advocacy curriculum in Pediatrics and integrated advocacy opportunities through the Internal Medicine Clinics. Residents can also spend time at the Bradshaw Institute for Community Child Health and Advocacy.
AAP Rome Visiting Professorship (May 2021) – This three-day visiting professorship with Dr. Rhea Boyd, MD, MPH, FAAP was galvanizing to our Med-Peds and Pediatric programs. Topics covered during Dr. Boyd’s professorship included the “School to Prison Pipeline: Highlighting South Carolina Specific Needs” and “Ant-Racist Imperative for Medicine: On Racism and Child Health.” Many of resident and faculty champions of this professorship were Med-Peds.
Med-Peds Conferences and Workshops – Our program is committed to addressing DEI topics through our weekly Med-Peds noon conferences and workshops and we plan for these sessions in our didactic curricular framework. The following are specific examples of recent conferences and workshops:
- Dermatology board review session on how skin pathology presents differently on highly pigmented skin
- Upstander Training for the clinical learning environment
- Weight bias
- Trauma-Informed Care

Climate and Recruitment

Faculty mentorship – Frequent check-ins and early career mentorship from our community Med-Peds faculty
Virtual open houses and second-look events – We coordinated a GMEC DEI Virtual Open Houses this year. We have been involved in Med-Peds URM open houses and Second-look events during the last two interview seasons with this virtual interview format.
Social media promotion – Profiling DEI events and initiatives on our Prisma Health Instagram page – @phu_medpeds
USC-SOM Greenville Med-Peds interest and affinity groups – residents can mentor medical students and speak at these interest/affinity group meetings
Holistic Application Review – New formation of the Med-Peds Recruitment Committee including core faculty and residents during the 2022-2023 interview season. Holistic review of resident applicants modeled after the USC-SOM Greenville selection process. Notably, 27% of the incoming USC-SOM Class of 2022 self-identifies as underrepresented in medicine.

Clinical Care

Black/African American, Latinx and Underserved Populations – The Center for Pediatric Medicine (CPM) and the Internal Medicine Clinics (IMC) continuity clinic sites afford residents ample opportunity to serve diverse populations. CPM is the largest Medicaid clinic in the state with more than 90% of outpatients covered by Medicaid with additional approximately 5% uninsured. Interested residents can get involved with quality improvement or other research projects in this area. Our IMC population is composed of approximately 40% Black/African American, 4% Hispanic/Latinx, 50% White patients while our CPM clinic is composed of approximately 30% Black/African American, 40% Hispanic/Latinx and 30% White patients. The numbers have been skewed by virtual visits during this pandemic. In CPM, 28% of patients are Spanish speaking but notably 28 primary languages other than English are represented. CPM also hosts a bimonthly clinic for children in immigrant families with medical complexity and will also be serving as a temporary medical home for unaccompanied immigrant children in a transitional foster care program that began the Summer of 2021.
Adolescent Medicine Rotation and LGBTQ Patient Care Collaborative – Discussed above under Education.
Bilingual Employee Translator Program– Residents who are proficient in Spanish can become certified to act as their own interpreter.
Global Health Opportunities – There are numerous Prisma Health Med-Peds Global Health Opportunities with longitudinal relationships and infrastructure forged in Brazil, Guatemala and Africa
Immigrant health/NYAP

Research

Approachable, collaborative subspecialists – Residents can find primary physicians, hospitalists and subspecialists who are passionate about DEI work and can serve as mentors.
Quality improvement projects – Many of the Med-Peds residents have chosen to conduct QI projects on the inpatient and outpatient settings explore health inequities and other DEI topics
Media advocacy opportunities – Amaka Ofodu, Med-Peds Class of 2023, appeared on our local news educating viewers about COVID vaccine safety and discussing the more equitable distribution of the COVID vaccine. Alex Perez, Med-Peds Class of 2024, spoke on a local radio to discuss the pandemic and his experiences as part of a community education and advocacy initiative of PASOs.

Pipeline/Outreach/Pathway

Pediatric Underrepresented in Medicine (URM) Visiting Student Scholarship – created by the Pediatric Residency program to fund travel and housing costs incurred by visiting underrepresented in medicine MS4 students.
Pediatric Youth Immersion Camp of the Upstate – Through the 2021 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Pediatric Pipeline Innovation Grant, Brittany Williams (Pediatrics resident, Class of 2022) and Amaka Ofodu (PGY4 and Chief Med-Peds resident), Senthuran Ravindran (Faculty mentor, Med-Peds APD) and several volunteer medical students from the USC-SOM Greenville and Prisma Health Pediatrics and Med-Peds residents designed and created the first-annual Pediatric Youth Immersion Camp of the Upstate (PYICU), a five-day, resident-designed Spring pathway program for high-schoolers – traditionally considered underrepresented in medicine or historically minoritized in medicine – designed to increase both hands-on experience and exposure to Pediatrics. The second annual camp will be in Spring 2022!
Framing Your Future – Dr. Amaka Ofodu, Med-Peds chief resident elect 2022-2023, created the mentorship series, “Framing Your Future,” a resident-led panel discussion providing opportunity for initiation of mentorship between underrepresented residents and medical students currently in clinical rotations.

Levi S. Kirkland Society – Founded in 2010, the mission of the Levi S. Kirkland, Sr. MD Society (LSK) is to collaborate with various stakeholders including medical school faculty, partner health system attending physicians, resident physicians and administrators in order to promote mentorship and scholarship for the School’s students who identify as Black/African American. The LSK assists with recruitment, retention, advising and mentoring of students while seeking to improve the health and wellness of communities by increasing awareness and addressing disparities in health. I can not find the old Levi Kirkland website…. https://sc.edu/study/colleges_schools/medicine_greenville/about/diversity/kirkland.php
Hispanic Medical Society – Founded in 2015, the Hispanic Medical Society is a physician-led Business Resource Group of Prisma Health-Upstate and serves to improve the health of all Hispanics and underserved communities and works to advance diversity in medical education with a focus on mentorship and recruitment and retention of students who identify as Hispanic/Latinx into and throughout medical school. The mentorship program began in 2017. Can’t find their website
MedEx Academy – MedEx Academy is a public/private partnership with academic institutions (K-12 and higher education), local and regional communities, philanthropic and other organizations. It is a key component of the School’s commitment to recruiting a diverse student body and represents an important component of workforce development efforts to attract younger people into the health care career pipeline
PreMEd Partners Pathway (P3) Program – The P3 program at the UofSCSOMG was created to increase the number of underrepresented students entering the medical school, thereby diversifying the type of physicians entering the South Carolina workforce. The P3 program is designed to identify, educate, and prepare underrepresented undergraduate students from SC colleges and universities to successfully enter and matriculate through the UofSC SOMG. P3 will provide longitudinal mentorship, formal guidance on the application process, summer research, summer educational programs (e.g., MedEx, SURD), test prep, and other resources to participating undergraduate students.
USC-SOM Greenville commitment to Diversity and numerous student organizations and affinity groups – Med-Peds Interest Group members and numerous SOM interest groups such as Student Advocates for Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity (SADIE), Student National Medical Association (SNMA), Latino Medical Student Association, StudentLGBTQ Health Interest group, and more.

Further Resources

Online Resources

Community Resources:

Greenville Free Clinic – Residents and faculty may volunteer at the clinic
Hispanic Alliance
PASOs
Pridelink
Upstate Pride SC

For more information or questions, please contact our Associate Program Director, Senthuran Ravindran – senthruan.ravindran@prismahealth.org. He can facilitate meetings or mentorship opportunities with former graduates and current residents.