GME: The Cleveland Clinic

Cultural Diversity Council

Vision

The Cultural Diversity Council envisions that the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, as a world-class healthcare institution, provides the highest quality health care for all of its patients, regardless of their racial, ethnic, gender, language and religious backgrounds, that it ensures culturally competent education/training for its trainees, and that it engages its scientists in culturally sensitive research to find new treatments and cures.

Mission

The mission of the Cultural Diversity Council is to support staff and trainees of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation to be culturally sensitive and respectful, to promote culturally competent patient care, education and research, and to increase the number of minority medical students and residents in training programs.

Values

Highest quality of patient care
Inclusiveness and respect for diverse views and pluralism
Individualized, patient-focused health care and treatment decisions
Education as a powerful change agent

Goals

To provide leadership in education and training for highest quality, culturally competent patient care
To promote an environment of tolerance, inclusiveness and respect for culturally diverse, trainees and staff
To provide guidance in culturally sensitive research endeavors

Priorities

Increase minority resident recruitment and retention.
Enhance opportunities for cultural competence education and training.
Improve access to information and knowledge in multicultural healthcare issues.
Promote system-wide networking among culturally diverse and sensitive staff and trainees.

Focus, Activities, and Programs

Recruitment, Retention and Mentorship
Minority Visiting Professors Series
New Resident Orientation in Cultural Diversity
Minority Medical Societies Affiliation
Collaboration with Other Diversity Programs within CCF

History

Since its inception in 1994, the Cultural Diversity Council (CDC) has had two primary interests: Recruitment of minority staff and residents, and physician education in cultural competence. As reflected in its original mission statement, the CDC has attempted "to enhance the visibility and status of culturally diverse people at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation." The Council soon found its mission rooted in a broad agenda of diversity and its work too complex and labor-intensive for a volunteer committee of change agents.

Under the leadership of Teresa Dews, MD, Council's founding chair, the CDC has grown from a conceptual model to a committee, devoted to diversity and its derivatives in the workforce and its impact on the quality of care. Under her leadership, new residents were sensitized to the treatment of minority patients; minority visiting professors lectured at the Division of Medicine Grand Rounds; African-American residents were supported through the Imhotep Society; and The Office of Professional Staff Affairs distributed a letter to the professional staff entitled "Valuing Diversity at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation."

Today, under David Rue, MD, the CDC has reflected on its many activities and has reorganized to better achieve its newly defined goals and objectives. This resulted in the revised mission statement above. The Council meets monthly with alternating agendas covering recruitment, or retention, education and research topics. In addition to the Cultural Diversity Council within the Division of Education, the Cleveland Clinic Foundation supports other diversity activities, i.e. the Committee on Professional Staff Diversity (Office of Professional Staff Affairs). Several CDC members participate in the various diversity activities under way at the Clinic.

While the CDC addresses cultural competence education and training, and minority resident recruitment, diversity is not restricted to physicians, and Council also has representatives from Nursing, Pastoral Care, and Bioethics with plans to add representatives from other disciplines as well.

Council Members

Committee on Recruitment and Retention

Ms. Patricia Chapek (Graduate Medical Education)
Teresa Dews, M.D. (Division of Anesthesiology)
Ms. Wilma Doyle (Medical Student Education)
Ericka Coats, M.D. (Division of Radiology)
Sony Kilgore, M.D.* (Division of Laboratory Medicine)
Karen Machen, M.D.* (Division of Laboratory Medicine)
David Rue, M.D. (Chair) (Department of Psychiatry)
Jerrold Saxton, M.D. (Department of Radiation Oncology)
Ms. Rosalind Strickland (Division of Health Affairs)
Ms. Julie Bonarrigo (Recording Secretary) (Division of Education)

Committee on Education and Research

Carol Blixen, R.N., Ph.D. (Division of Nursing)
Ms. Patricia Chapek (Graduate Medical Education)
Marianna Hewson, Ph.D. (Division of Education)
Neil Mehta, M.D. (Department of Internal Medicine)
Zoraida Mendez, M.D. (Department of Hematology and Oncology)
Therese Agaibi (International Center)
Rev. Patrick Persaud (Pastoral Care)
David Rue, M.D. (Chair) (Department of Psychiatry)
Jacquelyn Slomka, R.N., Ph.D. (Bioethics)
Ms. Rosalind Strickland (Division of Health Affairs)
Ms. Joyce Turner (Division of Health Affairs)
Ms. Becky Morris (Recording Secretary) (Department of Psychiatry)

Advisory Committee

John Clough, M.D. (Division of Health Affairs)
Andrew Fishleder, M.D. ex-officio (Division of Education)
Jeffery Hutzler, M.D. (Medical Student Education)
Susan Rehm, M.D. (Office of Professional Affairs)

*resident member

Consultation Services

Bioethics Consultation...Call 48720 daytime hours, Page 22512 after hours and weekends
On-Call Chaplain...Page 22956 day or night, seven days a week

Interpreter Services

The Volunteer Services Department, 56986 or 56987 for domestic patients, daytime hours
The International Center, 46404 for international patients, daytime hours
The Language Bank of International Services Center, 216-781-4560 for phone interpreting, 24 hours a day, especially after hours and weekends

Social Work Service...Call 46552 for routine; Page 20637 after hours and weekends (or call the operator for the on-call social worker)

Cultural Diversity Council...Call Dr. Rue at 42820 or Page 20366

Graduate Medical Education, NA 23
9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland, OH 44195
Tel. (216) 444-5690, (800) 323-9259
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