Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion
Our training program is committed to health equity, diversity and inclusion. We promise extraordinary training experiences in a dynamic and energetic global city that offers residents and fellows a diversity of patient populations, training experiences, neighborhoods and cultural activities. The culture of diversity is fostered from the top down and bottom up. This begins with an emphasis on diverse faculty recruitment at the level of the university and the department. We look beyond board scores to other achievements and accomplishments that make candidates from diverse backgrounds stand out at recruitment. Our current residents and program faculty also actively engage in discussions centered on diversity and inclusion. This activity has led to the formation of a joint neurology and neurosurgery health equity, diversity and inclusion committee targeting actionable and sustainable additions to our department's recruitment, selection and retention practices.
The Northwestern McGaw Underrepresented Residents and Fellows Forum (NMURFF) is an inter-departmental group for trainees at McGaw Medical Center that focuses on diversity and representation. The group’s leadership consists of residents and fellows who carry out programming in four areas: mentoring, networking and career development, outreach, and strategy and collaboration.
The Chicago campus is also home to the Northwestern Chicago OUT Network, a campus- and affiliate-wide networking group for LGBTQA (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, ally) faculty, staff, students, residents and fellows. Quarterly events draw participants from the medical and graduate schools and affiliated hospitals and clinics, and ensure that the campus is welcoming and inclusive. The Feinberg School of Medicine also offers Safe Space Training for faculty, staff, students and residents to better educate them about LGBTQA sensitivities and issues, especially in the healthcare arena.
The Student to Resident Institutional Vehicle for Excellence (STRIVE) mentoring program, founded by a McGaw resident, supports underrepresented minority medical students by providing a safe space for learning, mentorship and collegiality with residents and fellows. Through regularly scheduled sessions, medical students are given the opportunity to explore the medical field from the perspective of residents and fellows through panel discussions, role modeling, and formal and informal mentoring.
As a leading U.S. academic medical center, Northwestern must be outstanding in all dimensions of contemporary medical science, health care and health policy. We understand that a major defining characteristic of leading academic medical centers is a strong and palpable presence of diversity.”
The McGaw Health Equity and Advocacy Clinical Scholars Program is a two-year program that is open to all McGaw trainees (residents and fellows, PGY-2 and above) and provides them with the knowledge and skills to identify and address health inequities among their patients and communities.
Learn More at the McGaw Clinical Scholars Page Access other resources at the McGaw Diversity Page
