Creating a health equity and inclusion office in an academic pediatric medical center: priorities addressed and lessons learned.

Background: Over the last two decades, medical schools and academic health centers have acknowledged the persistence of health disparities in their patients and the lack of diversity in their faculty, leaders and extended workforce. We established an Office of Health Equity and Inclusion (OHEI) at our pediatric academic medical center after a thorough evaluation of prior diversity initiatives and review of faculty development data.

Objective: To describe the lessons learned at a pediatric academic medical center in prioritizing and implementing health equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives in creating the OHEI.

Establishing Effective Mentoring Networks: Rationale and Strategies.

Introduction: Mentoring networks constitute an effective mentoring model in academic medicine and significantly add to the traditional dyadic mentor-mentee relationship. There is an unmet educational need for medical faculty to recognize the importance and characteristics of effective mentoring networks and to develop tools and strategies to appraise and construct strong, individualized mentoring networks.

Methods: An interactive educational session on developmental mentoring networks for physicians and scientists in an academic environment was designed.