Earlier this month, Alameda Health System witnessed a historic moment at one of its hospital's emergency departments that speaks to the organization's efforts to promote more diversity among its physician leaders, the Oakland, Calif.-based system said July 22.
In an "entirely unplanned first" at Highland Hospital in Oakland, a team of Black ED residents on July 10 switched shifts with a second team of all Black residents, the system said.
Alameda Health System called the shift change a "watershed moment" that starkly contrasts "the decades when physician leadership was often 100 [percent] white."
Two attending emergency room physicians at the hospital — Berenice Perez, MD, and Jocelyn Freeman Garrick, MD — have been leading efforts to develop more physician leaders of color for nearly two decades.
Alameda Health System is also working to increase diversity in healthcare by offering annual internships and work-based learning experiences to more than 300 students from local communities most affected by health inequities through its HealthPATH program.
Learn more here.