Stanford University School of Medicine

On June 29, 2023, SUSOM officials issued a statement in response to the Supreme Court's ruling on affirmative action which reads in part as follows: "Echoing President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s message, we, too, are deeply disappointed in this decision. While we adjust to this new environment in a manner that conforms with the law, we want to emphasize that Stanford Medicine firmly believes in the transformative power of diversity, in all dimensions...While the ruling changes the landscape of university admissions, it does not change our resolve or our values. We reaffirm that commitment to you today and in the days to come."

"In order to make the fellowship application process more just and inclusive, and to encourage a diverse applicant pool," the Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine at Stanford has taken several steps. It has decreased the "weight of letters of recommendation and class rankings in MSPE," to reduce bias towards race and gender, includes the option to submit a diversity statement in the application, and "strongly considers candidates’ ability to contribute to inclusive community through allyship, advocacy, lived experience, and empathy."

The School of Medicine states that it is committed to "recruiting and retaining a diverse population of individuals at all levels." To achieve this goal, representatives from each office responsible for admissions "attend, sponsor, and/or host national diversity conferences." The SOM also hosts events like "Diversity Dinners" which are held to "showcase the School of Medicine to potential attendees." Furthermore, The Stanford University Minority Medical Alliance works "closely with diversity officers in diversity recruitment."

For Medical Students applying to the Neonatal and Developmental Fellowship, "underrepresented minority candidates are reviewed by equity liaisons who advocate for intentional diversification." Furthermore, candidates are also considered based on their "ability to lead/work in diverse teams and be conscientious community members."

The Stanford Genetic Counseling Diversity Equity Inclusion Action and Outreach Committee states it is committed to performing "individualized, holistic review(s) of each applicant." In alignment with this commitment, the program no longer requires "specific prerequisites" nor "considers GRE scores."  

In May of 2021, the school created a document entitled, "Commission on Justice and Equity Recommendations" representing an "unprecedented effort to collectively dismantle systemic racism and discrimination at Stanford Medicine and in society at large." One "charge" of the commission is to embed "anti-racism and DEI within the professional development and performance review structures for all employees and trainees."

Online trainings on "Microaggressions and Unconscious Bias" are offered through the Stanford Center for Continuous Medical Education office.

The school’s MD program states, “The Social Justice and Health Equity (SJ&HE) Curriculum Thread was initiated as a CCAP directive during in the Summer of 2020…its committee has been tasked with a comprehensive review of the Stanford Medical School Curriculum to identify strengths and gaps in addressing anti-racist education, health equity and other social justice issues for both our clerkship and pre-clerkship curricula.” The program also “spearheaded the implementation of important reforms to the existing medical school curriculum by working with course directors, faculty, students and staff to revise the existing educational materials. Our expectation is that anti-racist education will be a permanent thread included within the Stanford Medical School Curriculum.”

One objective of the Social Justice & Health Equity Curriculum Thread is to, “Demonstrate that racism and cultural biases in medicine are institutional, i.e. influenced and created more by societal structures and cultural assumptions than by individual and psychological factors,” by identifying “institutionalized racism as a modifier of health outcomes” and defining/analyzing “the historical legacy of systemic and structural racism in healthcare and medicine.”

The Stanford University System launched a new system to report "bias-related" incidents.

The Division of Neonatal and Developmental Medicine requires "unconscious bias training for all reviewers/interviewers."

The Presence 5 for Racial Justice team is pursuing projects that will “address underlying structural racism and inequity to promote healing amidst a history of racism in medicine,” such as “Clinician Communication Practices to Disrupt Racism and Promote Health Equity,” “Transdisciplinary Anti-Racism Communication Strategies: Insights from Diverse Fields,” “Presence 5 for Racial Justice Medical Education Curriculum,” and “Presence 5 for Racial Justice Action Lab: Translating research into practice to promote health equity and racial justice in health care” (supported by a grant from Stanford's Center for Comparative Race and Ethnicity).

The Health Equity and Social Justice Scholarly Concentration Program at Stanford "welcomes students interested in a deeper, more focused learning experience that centers on health justice and Equity First." The program "views medicine and scholarly work as an application of equity, justice, and humanism, and seeks to challenge biases engendered by dominant curricular frameworks, including those rooted in racism and white supremacy."

The REACH Scholars in Health Equity Program at Stanford is a "5-year MD/Masters program that is committed to developing a cohort of physician-leaders with the skills and resources to promote Social Justice and Health Equity."

In 2023, Stanford's Maternal and Child Health Research Institute announced its pilot grant program titled "Research on the Structural Racism, Social Injustice and Health Disparities in Maternal and Child Health." The institute states, "Addressing the impact of structural racism and social injustice as key drivers in health disparities that affect maternal and child health are critical to advancing research." (The deadline for this grant opportunity is October of 2023.)

Stanford's Leadership in Health Disparities Program includes a "summer early matriculation component directed at initiating a successful medical and leadership career, and a two-year leadership seminar series during the school year focused on increasing students’ knowledge of health inequities, the roles of physician leaders, and their leadership challenges."

The Racial Equity to Advance a Community of Health (REACH) Program states it "is dedicated to training a new generation of leaders in medicine and science who will actively promote health equity, racial equity, and social justice and work to reduce our society’s devastating health disparities." It also hosts a monthly lecture series on "Building a Culture of Health Equity."

The school has “Black Lives Matter” Resources, which include a “Confronting white supremacy: Educational Resource Sheet” and “Anti-racism resources for white people.”

The Teaching and Mentoring Academy has “Resources for Anti-Racist Education and Action,” which reference Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be an Antiracist.”

The school has an “Antiracism Book Club,” which is a “media-based discussion group geared toward Stanford Health affiliates, students, staff, and faculty. The group meets once a month to explore issues relevant to racism in medicine through the written word and videos.”

In 2017, the “associate dean of minority advising and programs (now emeritus), gathered a group of medical school faculty…to discuss ways in which medical school education could better address issues of anti-racism, social justice and health inequities in the doctor-patient relationship.”

The Department of Pediatrics’ Office of Child Health Equity offers an “Anti-Racism & Health Resources” guide, which includes Ibram X. Kendi’s “How to Be and Antiracist” and Robin DiAngelo’s “White Fragility.”

The Office of Faculty Development and Diversity offers “BLM Resources for Faculty,” which are “curated by the Anti-Racism Coalition, or ARC.” The resources include the “AAMC Anti-racism in Medicine Collection,” which “provides educators with practice-based, peer-reviewed resources to teach anti-racist knowledge and clinical skills, elevates the educational scholarship of anti-racist curricula, and aims to convene a community of collaborators dedicated to the elimination of racism within medical education.”

The Department of Medicine offers Diversity Resources, which include funding opportunities, such as the Chair Diversity Investigator Awards (which support “research that addresses health inequity, social determinants of health, cultural competence, outcomes improvement, health system access/utilization for racial, ethnic, and sexual and gender minorities, among many other possibilities.”) and the Dr. Fernando Mendoza HERO (Health Equity Research and Opportunity) Award.

The Department of Pediatrics has a Stanford Pediatrics Advancing Anti-Racism Coalition (SPAARC), which aims to “promote a culture of anti-racism in the Stanford Department of Pediatrics through immediate action, development of nimble systems, and longitudinal commitment to ongoing work, engagement and progress towards equity.” The SPAARC website links to other resource pages.

The Office of Faculty Development and Diversity launched a Health Equity Action Leadership (HEAL) Network, which “will bring faculty together to determine how we can better address health inequities.”

The HEAL Network site has linked to the “Precision Health Equity in Primary Care Seminar Series,” which presents, “the state of the science of precision health equity, from societal, scientific, and clinical perspectives, and was designed to inform and inspire primary care providers to translate these innovations into their practices and communities.” One session is “SPHERE Seminar I: Precision Health Equity and Social Justice.”

The Department of Pediatrics offers Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion resources, such as “Anti-Racism Educational Resources” and a “Racial Equity Tools Glossary.”

The Department of Urology offers Diversity, Equity and Inclusion resources.

Stanford Medicine held “Inclusive Leadership Workshops conducted in which over 500 leaders worked to advance their commitment to inclusion, diversity, and belonging.”

Stanford Medicine “developed anti-racism conversation guides for supervisors to use at management meetings, new leadership orientations, and on ‘Viz Wall’ posting. Topics include the meaning of Saying Black Lives Matter and Stop Asian Hate.”

The school announced, “New Department of Health Policy launched in September with billets focused on structural racism, social determinants of health, and health policy.”

The school announced, “Faculty DEI training piloted at Stanford University with over 30 SoM faculty participants.”

The school announced that the “SoM launched planning for new educational initiatives aimed at developing future health equity leaders” and that “Stanford Medicine will launch national health equity dialogue series in Winter Quarter.”

The school's Office of Diversity in Medical Education offers a ten-month long program titled "Leadership Education in Advancing Diversity (LEAD) which is "for residents and fellows across GME to develop leadership and scholarship skills in addressing issues related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), to produce leaders in academic medicine dedicated to DEI, and to improve the culture of medicine." (The program was initially developed in 2017 within the Department of Pediatrics.)

The school's Center for Continuing Medical Education offers a "5-Minute Moment for Racial Justice" curriculum which teaches how "racism and implicit bias affect routine care, and how we, as healthcare professionals, may unknowingly propagate health disparities. Our goal is for it to be a high-impact resource for learners and educators to normalize conversations around race and racism in medicine. We offer actionable steps for health equity."    

On May 10, 2021, the school's "Stanford Medicine Magazine" published an article entitled "Pay it Forward - Including social justice in the curriculum" and features an interview with Daniel Bernstein, MD, Associate Dean for Curriculum and Scholarship at Stanford Medical School. The article states, "The solution, Bernstein believes, is to incorporate discussions of health inequities and implicit bias into every aspect of teaching. A lesson about hypertension, for example, can include a discussion about the impact of poverty, lack of insurance or poor diet on disease prevalence."

One of the e-book's listed on the schools "link and resources" webpage is titled "Disability Studies and Critical Race Theory in Education" by David J. Connor, Beth A. Ferri, and Subini A. Annamma.

The Department of Immunology has a CDIII (Community, Diversity and Inclusion In Immunology) committee “that aims to promote a culture of diversity, equity and inclusion in the Immunology Program through the identification and recommendation of long-lasting creative solutions that embrace anti-racism principles and eliminate systemic bias.”

The Department of Medicine’s Diversity and Inclusion page lists a “Faculty Committee” and “Staff Committee.”

On June 29, 2023, the school published its response to the Supreme Court's decision regarding race-conscious admission policies and stated the following: "Echoing President Marc Tessier-Lavigne’s message, we, too, are deeply disappointed in this decision. While we adjust to this new environment in a manner that conforms with the law, we want to emphasize that Stanford Medicine firmly believes in the transformative power of diversity, in all dimensions. It fosters perspectives and experiences that enrich our medical knowledge, it enhances the care we provide, and ensures that tomorrow’s breakthroughs benefit all."

Stanford Medicine's Inclusive Excellence and Health Equity Strategic Plan states the school aims to "integrate health equity throughout all facets of research, education, and care delivery, addressing social determinants of health and fostering community partnerships."