2021 Spring: Strategies for Promoting Inclusivity in Health Sciences Education

Dr. Amy Caruso Brown is an Associate Professor of Bioethics and Humanities and of Pediatrics at SUNY Upstate Medical University, where she directs bioethics and health systems science education for medical students and leads the Upstate Bias Checklist Project. Her other research interests include the role of social justice in professional identity formation in medicine and the impact of social media on trust and the family-provider relationship. Dr. Caruso Brown is a graduate of the University of Virginia (BA, 2002), the University of Oxford (MSc in Medical Anthropology, 2008), Emory University (MD, 2008), and the University of Colorado (MS, 2014). She completed graduate medical training in general pediatrics and pediatric hematology/oncology at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (2008-2009) and the Children’s Hospital Colorado (2009-2014). She is currently board-certified in general pediatrics, pediatric hematology/oncology and healthcare ethics consultation.

Charlotte Baker, DrPH, MPH, CPH is faculty in the Virginia Tech Data and Decisions Destination Area; the PI of the analytic epidemiology I-SPY DATA Lab at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine; a member of the Faculty of Health Sciences; and faculty in the Virginia-Tech Carilion School of Medicine. Her research lab prioritizes bridging the methodological and data gaps in sports injury research by using advanced statistical analysis and large data sets, especially to address disparities in sport and recreation caused by social and structural determinants of health. A former Epidemic Intelligence Service Officer at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, she has more than 15 years of experience in the evaluation and assessment of both original and secondary data to address public health problems; community-based experience that directly addresses a variety of health problems within minority and underserved populations; and directing and managing data analysis with and for collaborators. She collaborates with the Virginia-Tech Carilion School of Medicine to design and implement interprofessional health equity and health disparity educational activities.

Karen Eley Sanders serves as Associate Vice Provost for College Access at Virginia Tech and was the inaugural Chief Diversity Officer for Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine from 2014-2020. She has worked in higher education as a counselor, administrator, and faculty member for almost three decades. Karen joined the Virginia Tech community in 2001 as director of the Center for Academic Excellence, and later served as Associate Vice Provost for Student Success and Interim Vice President for Diversity and Inclusion. In 2016, Sanders established a new organizational unit dedicated to college access for underserved communities in the Commonwealth. At Virginia Tech’s medical school, Karen led efforts to foster an environment that appreciates individual differences, values equal opportunity for all, promotes equity, and eliminates barriers to access and success for students, faculty and staff.

In 2013 she received a Gubernatorial appointment to serve on the Commonwealth of Virginia Brown v. Board of Education Scholarship Awards Committee, and has served on this committee for three consecutive Virginia governors. Karen is a lifetime member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and has chaired youth and education initiatives for the Montgomery County/Radford City/Floyd County chapter. She is also a lifetime member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., the nation’s largest predominately Black sorority with more than 250,000 college-educated women. Karen serves on the sorority’s National Program Planning and Development Committee, and she also chairs educational development initiatives for the Roanoke/New River Valley chapter.

She earned a B.S. and M.S. in Psychology from Virginia State University and a doctorate in Adult and Developmental Education from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville. She is also earned a certified developmental education specialist degree through the Kellogg Institute at Appalachian State University.

Karen Hauer is Associate Dean for Competency Assessment and Professional Standards and Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She designs and leads the program of assessment in the UCSF School of Medicine Bridges curriculum and directs the School’s medical student coaching program. She is an active researcher in medical education and a research mentor for fellows, residents and students, with a focus on competency-based medical education, learner assessment, coaching and remediation. In 2015, she completed a PhD in Medical Education through a joint program with UCSF and the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands. She is active on leadership committees with the National Board of Medical Examiners and Coalition for Physician Accountability, serves as deputy editor for the journal Medical Education, and is past president of the Clerkship Directors in Internal Medicine national organization. She earned her undergraduate degree at Stanford University, and then completed medical school and internal medicine residency and chief residency at UCSF. She is a practicing general internist in primary care. She is married and has 3 children.

Dr. Teherani is a Professor of Medicine, an Education Scientist in the Center for Faculty Educators, and Director for Program Evaluation and Education Continuous Quality Improvement for the UCSF School of Medicine. She is the co-founder and co-director of the UCSF Center for Climate and Health. Dr. Teherani’s research, which has informed local, national and international conversations, research agendas and policies, focuses on advancing knowledge in professionalism, equity and social justice, and climate and health education. Her research on equity addresses educational practices which perpetuate educational disparities and examines interventions aimed at creating equity and inclusion during medical education. Dr. Teherani leads the UCSF Equity and Justice in Education works in progress series. She teaches in and mentors students in the UCSF-University of Utrecht doctoral program in Health Professions Education, Master’s Program at the UCSF-University of California, Berkeley, and UCSF Education Sciences Inquiry domain. Dr. Teherani serves as an associate editor for the Journal of General Internal Medicine and Medical Teacher’s Best Evidence in Medical Education series.

Shani Fleming devotes her career to promoting diversity, inclusion, equity, and social justice within the healthcare community. She holds significant clinical experience as a Physician Assistant (PA) working in family medicine, infectious disease, and urgent care. Shani is an Associate Professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) Graduate School PA program and Intercultural Leadership certificate program. She is the Chief Equity, Inclusion, and Diversity Officer of the Physician Assistant Leadership and Learning Academy. She has facilitated recruitment efforts, reaching thousands of underrepresented racial and ethnic high school and college students advocating for diversity in PA education. Prof. Fleming is a proud HBCU graduate of University of Maryland Eastern Shore, and completed her Physician Assistant studies, Master of Public Health and Master of Science in Health Science from George Washington University. She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from the University of Maryland Baltimore County.

Rick McGee, PhD, received BS and PhD degrees in biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and the University of Iowa, respectively. He is currently the Associate Dean for Professional Development at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. In that role, his primary responsibility is to support the development of independent research programs of early career faculty. To achieve this, he has developed a novel approach to teaching grant wiring by leading coached writing groups that last 2-4 months. At any point in time 4-6 groups will be ongoing with 3-6 people/group. His career path to creating this unique role began with 20 years of laboratory research in basic neuroscience and cellular pharmacology. His roles then evolved to designing and leading research training at multiple levels, during which he began developing novel coaching models to complement research mentoring. During this evolution, he became interested in actually studying how young scientists develop using sophisticated qualitative research methods and established social science theories and models. A strong theme throughout his career has been in diversity efforts related to both gender and racial/ethnic equality. Today, in addition to his professional development role, he leads a team of social science and education researchers in the NIH-funded National Longitudinal Study of Your Life Scientists. They are also following the outcomes of PhD students who took part in a novel career coaching experiment, The Academy for Future Science Faculty. Dr. McGee also leads an NIH-funded diversity-focused professional development program for early PhD students at Northwestern (the CLIMB program), and is deeply involved with new approaches to promoting effective mentoring relationships, culturally aware mentorship, and grant writing skills through the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN).

Norma Iris Poll-Hunter, Ph.D. serves as Senior Director of Human Capital Initiatives in Diversity Policy and Programs at the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). She leads a portfolio of career and workforce development initiatives focused on advancing equity, diversity and inclusion across the medical education continuum. Dr. Poll-Hunter serves as the Principal Investigator for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Summer Health Professions Education Program (SHPEP), the largest national pre-health intervention focused on increasing diversity in the health professions. Dr. Poll-Hunter also leads three national faculty leadership and career development programs to promote the success of racial and ethnic minority faculty at the early and mid-career levels. She guides the development of numerous partnerships and collaborations with national organizations; and a national awards program recognizing leadership in diversity and health equity.

Dr. Poll-Hunter’s scholarly work focuses on diversity, workforce development, and culturally responsive education and training. She was the lead author of Altering the Course: Black Males in Medicine, and project lead and major contributor to Reshaping the Journey: American Indians and Alaska Natives in Medicine. She started her career working in community-based organizations on the development and implementation of interventions for youth in underserved communities. As a result of her training and professional experiences, she serves as a subject matter expert on strategies to increase workforce diversity and equity.

Prior to the AAMC, Dr. Poll-Hunter practiced as a bilingual psychologist in Schenectady, New York. She attended the University of Albany, SUNY, where she earned her Ph.D. in counseling psychology, and she earned her BA in Psychology at Lehman College, CUNY. Dr. Poll-Hunter is a proud Nuyorican from the Bronx.

Ms. Caruthers joined the UTHSC PA Program faculty in January 2018. She holds her MS in Physician Assistant Studies from the University of Alabama at Birmingham (2009) and a MS in molecular, cellular and systemic physiology with a Certificate in anatomy from Southern Illinois University Carbondale (2005). Her career in academia started at SIUC as an anatomy instructor for the School of Medicine, but after earning her MSPAS, she served as PA faculty for approximately eight years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, while working clinically in emergency medicine and urgent care. In between her teaching and administrative responsibilities at UTHSC, she practices primary care at the University Health Services clinic and at a local free clinic. Her passion to increase the representation of students who are from rural communities, from educationally and economically disadvantaged backgrounds, as well those historically not represented within the health professions is reflected in her local, state and national participation in a variety of health professions outreach activities.

Dr. Marquita Stephanie Norman is an Associate Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine and she serves as the Assistant Dean for Student Inclusion and Diversity at Wake Forest School of Medicine. She was born in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and completed her undergraduate education at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. She attended medical school at the University of Kansas School of Medicine. She completed her internship at Howard University and residency training at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Dr. Norman previously served as the Director of Community Engagement in the Office for Diversity and Inclusion-Student Affairs at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) where she was responsible for diversity pipeline programming. Additionally, she completed her MBA from the Collat School of Business at UAB. Dr. Norman’s professional and community interests include communication skills, diversity education, pre-health education and healthcare disparities. Outside of work, she enjoys spending time with her young son.