Examining intersectionality in anesthesiology training, academics, and practice.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Intersectionality, or the overlapping nature of social categorizations, such as race, class, and gender, creates interdependent systems of discrimination, disadvantage, and health disparities. The present review examines common shortcomings to diversity management, and proposes targeted improvement frameworks for anesthesiology departments that would offer competitive advantage in training, hiring, and retention, and improved care delivery aimed toward reducing health disparities. RECENT FINDINGS: Studies highlight that physicians equipped to care for diverse populations enhance patient-doctor interactions and reduce health disparities. Moreover, untrained providers and staff who engage in disrespectful behaviors like microaggressions can lead to staff turnover and millions of dollars in lost revenue. Underrepresented minorities continue to have lower faculty academic rank in anesthesiology, fewer partnership opportunities in private practice, and disparate research funding. Diversity-based education and training often overlooks intersectionality and reductively illustrates diverse groups as internally homogenous. Even these developing diversity efforts have become politicized and are perceived as uninteresting, irrelevant to medical practice, or unable to create organizational change. SUMMARY: The synergy of intersectionality mounts considerable challenges that impact patients, colleagues, and communities of practice. Examining intersectionality in education and workplace policy affords tremendous opportunity for improving quality of care for marginalized populations, reducing healthcare costs, and normalizing culture that is inclusive, equitable, and empowering.

Integrating Sex and Gender into an Interprofessional Curriculum: Workshop Proceedings from the 2018 Sex and Gender Health Education Summit.

Background: In the last 3 years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) declared advancement of understanding the role sex as a biological variable has in research a priority. The burden now falls on educators and clinicians to translate into clinical practice the ensuing body of evidence for sex as a biological variable that clearly shows the effect of sex/gender on disease diagnosis and management. The 2018 Sex and Gender Health Education Summit (SGHE) organized an interdisciplinary and interprofessional workshop to (1) analyze common clinical scenarios highlighting the nuances of sex- and gender-based medicine (SGBM) in presentation, diagnosis, or management of illness; (2) utilize valid educational and assessment tools for a multiprofessional audience; and (3) brainstorm standardized learning objectives that integrate both. Materials and Methods: We describe the iterative process used to create these scenarios, as well as an interprofessional forum to develop standardized SGBM case-based objectives. Results: A total of 170 health education professionals representing 137 schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Public Health, Nursing, Physical, and Occupational Therapy participated in this workshop. After attending the workshop, participants reported a significant increase in comfort level with using diverse educational modalities in the instruction of health profession learners. Recurrent themes included case-based learning, use of sex-neutral cases, simulation, and standardized patient scenarios for educational modalities; and self-assessment, peer assessment, and review of clinical documentation as used assessment tools. Materials created for the workshop included teaching SGBM case scenarios, methods of assessment, and sample standardized objectives. Conclusion: The SGHE Summit provided an interdisciplinary forum to create educational tools and materials for SABV instruction that may be applied to a diverse audience.