- Mailing Address
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1 Baylor Plaza
Houston, Texas 77030 - Email address
- admissions@bcm.edu
- Website
- https://www.bcm.edu/
- School Information
- "Baylor College of Medicine is a health sciences university that creates knowledge and applies science and discoveries to further education, healthcare and community service locally and globally...Our seven-year strategic roadmap provides the blueprint for leveraging Baylor’s collaborative environments and historic leadership in research to form a new paradigm for integrated health sciences universities." The school employs 3,296 full-time faculty and enrolls 753 medical school students, 578 graduate school students, and 261 health professions students. (Source: https://www.bcm.edu/about-us/mission-vision-values) (Source: https://www.bcm.edu/pdf/2021-Fast-Facts.pdf)
- General Information
- Baylor College of Medicine will, “Educate our healthcare workers, scientists and communities to address structural racism and mitigate its negative impacts on health and healthcare.” The college will continue to “invest in racial bias training and social awareness training, along with evidence-based quality improvement programs. We are also examining coursework and curricula to improve educational content in this area for Baylor faculty, trainees and students and are offering learning opportunities for all Baylor employees to share perspectives.” See developments below:
Actions Taken
- Admissions Policies
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The Baylor College of Medicine created the "Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion." It is tasked with increasing non-white enrollment, and improving "cultural competence and health equity."
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The Diversity Admissions Symposium at BCM "provides assistance to accomplished undergraduate and post-baccalaureate students who have traditionally been underrepresented in medicine and biomedical sciences workforce and are interested in applying to medical, graduate health professions or graduate biomedical sciences schools."
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- Anti-Racism, Bias, and Diversity Training
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The college will, “Educate our healthcare workers, scientists and communities to address structural racism and mitigate its negative impacts on health and healthcare.” The college will continue to “invest in racial bias training and social awareness training, along with evidence-based quality improvement programs. We are also examining coursework and curricula to improve educational content in this area for Baylor faculty, trainees and students and are offering learning opportunities for all Baylor employees to share perspectives.”
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The Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences participated in the 2022 DEI-Focused Grand Rounds with the purpose of "education, awareness and sharing of ideas around the topic of diversity, equity and inclusion" with department faculty, trainees, and staff. Session topics included "Examination of Race and Culture Bound Syndromes in Psychiatry", "Detecting and Undoing Racial Bias in the Delivery of Electroconvulsive Therapy", and "The Ethics of Responding to Microaggressions and Discriminatory Requests."
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The Medical School offers a certificate in "Implicit Bias and Personal Views" that students can earn.
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- Program and Research Funding
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In December 2020, Baylor College of Medicine awarded eight junior faculty and students one-year grants totaling $250,000 for research projects on racial health disparities and social determinants of health in support of its position statement "Strengthening Our Commitment to Racial Justice to Improve Public Health."
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BCM's 2023 Health Equity Research Summit was held on May 16, 2023 which had the theme of "Achieving Environmental Justice: Removing Systemic Barriers and Disparities in Healthcare." The program is "intended for both Baylor College of Medicine and external audiences interested in advancing health equity and diversity and inclusion in healthcare."
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The Baylor College of Medicine Post-Baccalaureate Research Education Program "prepares college graduates who are underrepresented in science and medicine to enter and succeed in rigorous biomedical Ph.D. programs." (The application deadline was May 1, 2023) The program defines underrepresented in science as "Blacks or African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos, American Indians or Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, individuals with disabilities, individuals from a disadvantaged background and women in math-intensive research."
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BCM's Biomedical Researcher Faculty Summit would "provide support to underrepresented biomedical researchers interested in using the NIH [National Institute of Health] 'All of Us' Research Platform." "All of Us" has an "interest in increasing the diversity of the biomedical research workforce."
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In September of 2023, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Southern University (TSU) and UTHealth Houston announced that they would be recieving a $2.6 million dollar grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Development. The schools will be researching the "impact of neighborhood-level metrics of structural racism across different domains on disparities in maternal and infant health in the greater Houston area."
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- Resources
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The college’s Diversity Prelook Event 2021 includes “Welcome Remarks and What BCM is doing to Strengthen Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Create a Culture of Anti-Racism.”
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The Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion organizes programs such as “Unconscious/Implicit Bias Training.”
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The Department of Family and Community Medicine hosted an “Addressing Racism in Medical Education – Everyone Matters, Everyone Counts” event.
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In celebration of Black History Month 2022, Baylor College of Medicine hosted five events in partnership with the Office of Institutional Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; Center of Excellence in Health Equity, Training, and Research Grand Rounds; Student National Medical Association; and the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics. Lecture topics varied from how workforce diversification can solve the "health equity crisis" to "Race and Genetics: Perspectives of Precision Medicine."
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DEI research initiatives within the Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences include the "Racial Disparities Quality Improvement Project" and "Latino Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) Genetic Study."
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Under the school's leadership commitments, they commit to "promoting the health of all individuals, to working toward a more just healthcare system, and to demonstrating leadership in the advancement of diversity, inclusion and equity." This is done through commitments toward improving recruitment practices, educating the negative impacts of racism, and increasing the number of minorities in lacking fields.
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- Symbolic Actions
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According to Twitter, the school held a webinar on Black Lives Matter in Science, Education, and Medicine: "So excited to watch today's #AAMC20 "Herbert W. Nickens Lecture: Black Lives Matter in Science, Engineering, and Medicine" with @bcmhouston 's Dr. Alicia Monroe and Dr. Cato Laurencin."
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The BCM Office of Institional Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity hosts its own Twitter account @bcm_equity.
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Baylor College of Medicine's Menninger Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences has faculty inclusion and equity ambassadors who lead the department's DEI and antiracism efforts.
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The college's "mission, vision, values" statement pledges to "promote and support diversity, inclusion and equity."
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