University of California Davis School of Medicine

Based on UC Davis’s MD Program Policies, “The UC Davis Office for Health Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (HEDI) works in tandem with the Dean of the School of Medicine, the UC Davis Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and the Vice Chancellor of Human Health Sciences and Chief Executive Officer for UC Davis Health to lead and support system-wide initiatives focused on the recruitment of a diverse community of students, faculty, and senior administrative staff, while fostering an inclusive and equitable learning environment.”

The UC Davis School of Medicine’s Office for Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion works to develop and implement programs and policies to “increase the diversity of our trainees (medical students, residents, and fellows), faculty, staff, and senior administrative staff.”

The school said, "All orientations now include anti-racism content."

According to the AAMC survey results, UC Davis School of Medicine “requires prospective and current faculty to submit DEI statements, allocates resources towards DEI and offers professional development programs for minority groups, it sponsors, but does not fund, affinity groups.”

To expand DEI and Anti-racism training, the Office of Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion will provide mandatory training for UC Davis Health members, specifically the "Health Equity/Anti-Racism Curriculum Thread," which is required curriculum for medical students.

The Associate Dean for Curriculum and Associate Dean for Diverse and Inclusive Education will "co-chair a planning group to expand curriculum for health equity and anti-racism topics."

The school plans to, "Broaden Health Equity course to include recommended topics and continue support to Summer Institute and elective courses as recommended" and "Add new two-day course focused on anti-racism to MS1 curriculum for fall 2020."

The school plans to, "Institute anti-racism training for managers in UCDH Patient Care Services based on the Race and Health Summer Institute."

The school said, "OME will continue to work with Academic Personnel (faculty development), CME and HEDI to help improve anti-racism and health equity trainings and require all faculty to take these trainings."

The Office for Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion has a $5,500 "Anti-Racism and Cultural Humility (ARC) Fellowship and Academy" that will be "built on a framework of Cultural Humility. Fellows will do their own deep identity work within a small ongoing learning community. Our time together will be contextualized in the history of those dysfunctional U.S. race relations that continue to 'script' or result in racial inequities. The ultimate goal is to build and sustain a community of UC Davis Health professionals who can talk and teach about race and racism, and who are committed to cultivating emotionally safe and intellectually rigorous learning opportunities and arenas for students, trainees and colleagues."

The school announced, "Agreement reached with UCPD at UCD Health to participate in anti-racism training."

The Office for Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion provides "Anti-racism resources," which include a "Restorative justice reading list" that features Ibram X. Kendi's "How to Be an Antiracist."

The Office for Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion has a Racial Justice Dashboard to be used "as a tool for self-education and to explore ways to engage in anti-racism efforts." The office also has events, such as "Addressing Microaggressions in Health Professions Learning Environments" and "Understanding How Stereotype Threat Impacts Health Professions Students."

Additionally, the Office of Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion will make several DEI lecture and discussion series open to community members, including "Racial Healing Circles" and (for students and faculty) the Race and Health Institute Elective.

The school hosted an event titled, "Forum@MC: A Campus Conversation on Antiracism Globally," featuring Ibram X. Kendi.

The school said, "The UC Davis Office of Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and its collaborating partners continue the popular Coping as a Community webinar series focusing on the important issues of structural racism, strategies and techniques for questioning and interrupting discrimination, ways to help build healthier and safer inclusive communities, and how to heal during these challenging times."

The Office of Student and Resident Diversity put out Antiracism Resources, including an Aspen Ideas session titled, "How to be an Antiracist."

The school said, "The Office for Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion in coordination with the Office of Continuing Medical Education is offering a four-part hybrid (online and in class) training for SEED: Supporting Educational Excellence in Diversity. Upon completion of this series, participants will be able to apply cultural humility to empower their teaching, identify the key elements of curricular content that contribute to the cultural microaggressions that impede learning and develop self-management and communications skills to navigate difficult interactions that impact cultural safety."

On July 2, 2023, the NY Times published an article titled "With End of Affirmative Action, a Push for a New Tool: Adversity Scores," which discusses how UC Davis medical school is creating new mechanisms in order to increase diversity at its school. The article states, "With the Supreme Court’s ruling last week against race-conscious admissions, the medical school offers a glimpse of how selective schools across the country might overhaul their admissions policies, as they look for alternative ways to achieve diversity without running afoul of the new law." Additionally, according to the article, "President Biden called adversity scores a 'new standard' for achieving diversity."

On April 17, 2024, The College Fix reported that applicants for the surgical oncologist position at UC Davis are required to submit a DEI statement while at the same time research and teaching statements are listed as optional. According to the article, a "former associate dean at the University of Pennsylvania medical school criticized the requirement" and stated, "'There is no evidence that DEI adherence does anything to improve medical care...There is a great deal of concern that adherence to DEI lead to divisiveness and mistrust on the part of patients'.”

UC Davis Health launched its Inclusion, Diversity, Anti-Racism, and Equity (IDARE) Taskforces Initiative to "stimulate more attention, consideration, and accountability to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in those processes."

The Office of Health Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion has recruited 3 DEI directors and will recruit 2 associate deans and a director for diversity.

The school said, "The UC Davis Health Staff Advisory Committee on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (SACEDI) is the primary advisory body for the Associate Vice Chancellor (AVC) of Diversity and Inclusion, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UCD Medical Center (UCDMC), and the Vice Chancellor (VC) of Human Health Sciences/Dean of the School of Medicine on staff concerns and issues related to equity, diversity and inclusion."

UCDavis School of Medicine was given a 98.9% rating by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) for the school’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The school received a nearly perfect rating and the highest score given to any medical school on how “they incorporate DEI into their curriculum, administration and operations.”

On October 13, 2022, INSIGHT Into Diversity ranked UC Davis School of Medicine as the third most diverse medical school in the country with the 2022 Health Professions Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award for its commitment to diversity and inclusion.

UC Davis Health is offering a learning module on “Addressing Microaggressions in Health Professions Learning Environments” through July and August of 2023.

UC Davis Health is offering a learning module on “Understanding How Stereotype Threat Impacts Health Professions Students” through July and August of 2023.

On August 11, 2023, UC Davis scheduled a “Faculty Search Committee Training.”