Navigating Microaggressions in Medicine: Strategies from Yale School of Medicine's Chief Diversity Officer, Dr. Darin Latimore
Aug 08, 2023Season 1Episode 17
Dr. Jasmine Weiss/ Dr. Darin Latimore
In this engaging episode of the B-MED Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Darin Latimore, Chief Diversity Officer at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Latimore offers aspiring medical students essential tips for crafting standout applications, focusing on the power of mentorship and clarity when writing your personal statement.👨🏾⚕️🧑🏾⚕️
Dr. Latimore goes beyond application advice, delving into the critical topic of addressing microaggressions and discrimination at different stages of the medical journey. 🩺He provides strategies for navigating and combatting microaggressions for medical students and residents. Additionally, he offers valuable guidance for early career faculty, emphasizing the importance of mentorship, sponsorship, and networking in achieving growth and advancement.
Key Highlights from the Episode:
Crafting standout medical school applications: Dr. Latimore emphasizes the importance of clarity when crafting an impactful personal statement.
Addressing microaggressions: Dr. Latimore discusses strategies to tackle microaggressions along the journey.
Early career faculty success: Dr. Latimore offers insight into the differences between mentorship and sponsorship while sharing advice for navigating the challenges of a career in academic medicine
Tune into this week’s episode as Dr. Latimore shares his expertise and experiences to provide a roadmap for aspiring medical professionals aiming to excel in their journey! 🎧 Listen until the end to hear our BIG announcement!📱
If you enjoy this week's episode and want more, sign up for our exclusive newsletter to get more updates from B-MED, tap into our Word of the Week Segment (WoW), and much much more!
In this engaging episode of the B-MED Podcast, we sit down with Dr. Darin Latimore, Chief Diversity Officer at Yale School of Medicine. Dr. Latimore offers aspiring medical students essential tips for crafting standout applications, focusing on the power of mentorship and clarity when writing your personal statement.👨🏾⚕️🧑🏾⚕️
Dr. Latimore goes beyond application advice, delving into the critical topic of addressing microaggressions and discrimination at different stages of the medical journey. 🩺He provides strategies for navigating and combatting microaggressions for medical students and residents. Additionally, he offers valuable guidance for early career faculty, emphasizing the importance of mentorship, sponsorship, and networking in achieving growth and advancement.
Key Highlights from the Episode:
Crafting standout medical school applications: Dr. Latimore emphasizes the importance of clarity when crafting an impactful personal statement.
Addressing microaggressions: Dr. Latimore discusses strategies to tackle microaggressions along the journey.
Early career faculty success: Dr. Latimore offers insight into the differences between mentorship and sponsorship while sharing advice for navigating the challenges of a career in academic medicine
Tune into this week’s episode as Dr. Latimore shares his expertise and experiences to provide a roadmap for aspiring medical professionals aiming to excel in their journey! 🎧 Listen until the end to hear our BIG announcement!📱
If you enjoy this week's episode and want more, sign up for our exclusive newsletter to get more updates from B-MED, tap into our Word of the Week Segment (WoW), and much much more!
Have you ever thought about what it takes to become the chief diversity officer of a medical school? Have you ever thought about what that career looks like? Or maybe how they work daily to combat racism and to address microaggressions in medicine and in medical education? Or even how a chief diversity officer would help think about how medical students, residents and fellows go about their training and what tips and strategies they can provide to help make sure that you, if you're applying for medical school, are ready and thinking about how to be the best applicant moving forward.
Speaker 1:
Well, today you're in for a treat, because I had a wonderful conversation with Dr Darren Lattimore, the chief diversity officer of Yale School of Medicine, where he shared all about his journey to becoming a chief diversity officer and provided some tips for trainees and talked a lot about what he does every day in his role. If you're excited to hear more from our amazing guests, let's jump right into the episode. Roll the music. Hello everyone, welcome to the BlackMedConnect podcast, affectionately known as the BMed podcast, and we are delighted today to have a phenomenal guest with us, dr Darren Lattimore. He is the chief diversity officer at Yale School of Medicine and someone I call a mentor, so thank you so so much for joining us today on the podcast.
Speaker 2:
It's my absolute pleasure. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1:
Yes, yes, and so I know our audience would love to know all about what inspired you to pursue medicine and how you became a chief diversity officer. Wow, that's a conversation.
Speaker 2:
Yes. So, although I live a life of privilege now, I grew up actually poor, and so health care for me often was going to county facilities or other quote unquote sort of government sponsored health care sites. Sometimes my mother did have insurance, and so every now and then we had private, but most of the time as a child I went to public, and so it was very clear to me that the quality of health care that we were getting left something to be desired. And then I was like kid one of my friends got injured while we were playing, and so I took them to my house and did some real basic first aid and saw a huge difference in my friend just within moments, from crying and upset to let's go finish the game. And so, literally in the seventh grade, I decided from this experience that I was going to be a doctor. Now, of course, I had no idea what that really meant, but that started a path that I've never wavered from.
Speaker 1:
That's amazing. That's amazing. A lot of people have a story like that, where myth is a family member, friend. Something in medicine strikes you that wow, this is the path for me. So it's fascinating that you had a friend in an injury boom and set you on this path. And so how did you go from? Okay, I'm in seventh grade. What was it like to get from there all the way into medical school, and what was your path like from that point?
Speaker 2:
So it wasn't easy for several reasons. Again, like I said, I grew up poor in America. I got my first little gig at the age of 12. I worked every summer from the age of 13 until I was 16 and could get a legitimate job and then worked until I left for college. My father spent most of my childhood in prison and my mother, unfortunately, was disabled. So I'm not going to say it was an easy path by any stretch of imagination, but I was very fortunate to have people, especially my grandfather, who really supported me in pursuing education and having some teachers along the way that kept reminding me I would be able to do way more for my family with an education than without one. So I would say it was those important people who allowed me to stand on their shoulders that are a real reason of that I was able to actually pursue my dreams.
Speaker 1:
Wow, yes, yes. It sounds like you were able to overcome a lot of challenges and it goes to show, especially for our audience who may be considering the field, that you can continue to push forward with support and help of others. What advice would you give, because we're in that season where people are applying to medical school? How would you advise those individuals who see this as something they want to do but may come from a tough upbringing?
Speaker 2:
So take a breath. I know this implied in medical school is extremely stressful and a lot of times you feel like imposters and we don't have hope, et cetera, et cetera. So one take a breath, realize, quite frankly, medicine needs you. Yes, you are actually doing society a favor by actually joining the House of Medicine, so we're not doing you a favor. So just remember that your presence in medicine is important. Again, find mentors, people who can help you in the application process, review your materials and don't be afraid to reach out to diversity offices at medical schools. We're accustomed to this and we try our best, with our time limitations, to be as helpful as we can, but if you have someone helping, guiding, supporting you, then I would say that will lead to more success.
Speaker 2:
This is your year. This is the year you're going to apply, trying to apply as early in the cycle as possible. Statistics show that the exact same application is more likely to be accepted earlier in the cycle than later in the cycle. However, be honest with yourself. If this is your year, if your GPA is not that that you don't, you think that doesn't reflect you and that a post-bacc or a master's might be helpful, there's nothing wrong with that Matter of fact, it will probably increase the number of schools you're able to get into. If your MCAT is significantly below a 500, then you may want to think about taking it a second time. Again, there's nothing wrong with that. At least 30% of people take the MCAT at least twice. It is not a failure to take the MCAT more than once, but if you feel your package really does reflect you, then try and submit it as early in the year as possible.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for that. I don't think we can get the advice from anybody who knows more than you do. Dr Lattimore, I love what you said about taking a breath, because I think so many people. It's a lifelong goal. They're really, really excited about it. They're really nervous about it. I think that's something that's a common thread, especially for people coming from historically black and brown communities, underrepresented communities, marginalized communities. I think taking a breath is important. What you really said, I love that saying that medicine needs you. I tell people that all the time we need diverse voices. We need individuals who are thinking outside of the box and creatively about how to impact healthcare. I love that you shared that with our audience, who may be listening or watching. Can you speak a little bit more to when you're thinking about applicants or when Yale is looking at applicants? What makes a great applicant to the institution?
Speaker 2:
I'm going to talk about just medical school in general. I would say first and most importantly, when I reach your application, I need to understand why you want to be a doctor. That comes through most in your personal statement. Make sure when you write your personal statement that it clearly answers that question. Most of my med teens I'll make them do an exercise where I'll say you have two sentences to tell me why you want to be a doctor.
Speaker 2:
Give me your elevator speech. Surprisingly, most people are not able to do that. I tell them, as I'm telling you, you need to be very clear in your own brain why you want to be a doctor. Before you try and convince an admissions committee why you want to be a doctor, before you even start your application, answer that question and answer it crisply. If you're stuttering and going on for hours trying to explain to me why you want to be a doctor, then it is not clearing your mind. Do that work first before you even start your application, because your application will read much better. It will answer the most important question where does the passion for becoming a doctor come from and whom do you plan to serve in that process? That's the big thing that I'm looking for.
Speaker 1:
Okay, okay, I feel like that's such a huge part of it, the clarity. So thank you for sharing that, do you? I guess I'll kind of not necessarily change directions a little bit, but in your role as a Chief Diversity Officer, what are some things you think applicants should consider when they're thinking about? Where do they see themselves, especially our communities that may or may not be familiar with the process, may have not been able to kind of step foot on a campus before, in a medical school setting. What things should they look out for and ask questions about?
Speaker 2:
So first be honest with yourself. How do you learn best? What sort of settings do you learn best? What sort of supports do you need? And each of us this is different.
Speaker 2:
Still, often I see students going after a name as to which medical schools that they want to go to, versus which medical school will support their learning best and ensure that they'll be successful. So first really be honest with yourself. Do you learn in small environments? Actually, are you okay in a class of 200 people and not get lost? So think about those sort of things. Also, be honest with yourself. Do you need to be in a setting where there are people with your identities? Are you okay with being the trailblazer? Yet again and again, each of us has to answer that question for ourselves. And then the other thing that I really would strongly advocate you ask about, and that is support systems at each of the schools you interview at.
Speaker 2:
A lot of institutions spend time recruiting people and spend no time making sure they support those people to ensure that they're successful. And so when you're interviewing, talk to students who have your identities. What are the support system? If you've had any difficulties? How the institution respond to that. If you're having microaggressions or flat out racism. Who on this campus can I go and talk to about that, etc. Etc. Really, honestly, it's not just about being getting into medical school. It's about being successful in medical school so that you end up with a long-term career that you want, whatever that is that you envision for yourself.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely.
Speaker 2:
If you get on a campus and have a bad experience, do not ignore that. If people show you their rear end at the interview, be honest, how do you think they're going to treat you once you signed on the dialyne?
Speaker 1:
Hello everyone. Are you enjoying the episode so far this week? Well, I'm excited to announce that this week's episode is sponsored by the BeMed app. That's right, you heard it the BlackMed Connect app. This app will be for any Black or Brown pre-medical students, medical students, residents, fellows and attendings, even for institutions. We're in the process of developing our app and we wanted to share it with you now. So if you're interested in receiving updates on when the BeMed app will be available to the world, then head on over to bemedconnectcom slash app APP and join the waitlist. Let's jump right back into the episode. Let's talk a little bit about that, because you mentioned you know, almost like your intuition, when you're trying to decide where you go and the feeling you get and how you're being treated, and you mentioned microaggressions and racism. For those who may not understand what that means and what microaggressions are, can you share a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:
So microaggressions are kind of those. They can be subtle, they can be over, but they're those little slights where people say things that basically are either indignities or hostile, but they basically kind of convey to you, the person who's on the receiving end, that they consider you less than, or that they really don't feel that you belong in these spaces. Yes, so that out racism is absolutely overt and can be very discriminatory in its effect. Even though we think of microaggressions as small slights, they add up. You know the hundreds of thousands stab and you start to bleep after a while. And so I don't want to make it seem like microaggressions are less important than flat out racism, because actually the data probably would suggest microaggressions affect us more Over time, because racism we call it what it is we hand it back to the person versus the microaggression. So often we absorb and we're sitting there trying to figure out where that came from when I did, instead of handing it back to the individual.
Speaker 1:
Yes, I know, even in personal experience. You end up sitting around questioning what was that all about? Was that intentional? Was it not intentional? Like how?
Speaker 2:
was it supposed to?
Speaker 1:
respond Right. Am I overreacting? Did I do something that I'm not familiar with? How do I respond next time? A lot of like, oh man, I should have done something differently. So it's definitely like you said. It's not small, but it's. Even though it may feel small in the moment and your mind is trying to help you decide how to handle it, it can definitely be damaging and quite often, over time at least, the people feel like they don't belong in spaces.
Speaker 1:
So, in your role, how do you help not only incoming students, but as a chief diversity officer, you're looking across the entire institution at all levels of training, whether it be medical, residency and faculty as well. What do you do to help kind of have these discussions, mitigate bias, share more about what they are and help people feel like they can advocate for themselves?
Speaker 2:
So I do a little bit of all of it. So I do a lot of actual workshops and trainings on microaggressions, on implicit bias not as much straight anti-racism training, but a lot on microaggressions and implicit bias. So that's one level. The other level is you're alluded to.
Speaker 2:
I am a person that people come to frequently when they feel that they've been the victim of or the target of the recipients of, the microaggressions, the racism, the sogeny, etc. The homophobia. And I'll be honest with you as a chief diversity officer, my first principle is to make sure I do what the person who was harmed wants. Sometimes people are so afraid of retaliation or their grade or their whatever, that they really just want to talk to somebody, talk through, validate that they're not the crazy one. But they're too afraid to do any much more than that, which is unfortunate. But I understand their reality. In some cases I give them skills of sort of how to respond. Quite often when you is a person who's not in a place of power, they are encouraged to respond with questions like what do you mean by that? Can you remind me what article shows that black people are inferior or different, or?
Speaker 1:
whatever it is being said, Show me the evidence please, exactly so.
Speaker 2:
I try and have them think of ways that aren't as confrontational kind of responses that they can give. For those who allow me to, I actually will also have a direct intervention with whoever was the aggressor, and that can take multiple different forms, and if I think that, based on what happened, a whole setting needs to be educated, that's when my workshops come into play, but it's really I really let it be guided by the person who was harmed.
Speaker 1:
Yes, absolutely, and you mentioned that hierarchy. If you're in training, if you're a student and something happens, you're always afraid of retaliation and I'm not sure that that goes away really truly at any level, that you're afraid of the repercussions. But you, I'm glad we have individuals like you and throughout institutions who can help navigate these challenges. Do you think people come to you enough? Do you feel like people reach out enough, or what's your perception?
Speaker 2:
Absolutely not. Often, unfortunately, people reach out to me quite often when they're at their breaking point, when things have gotten so bad they're literally thinking about dropping out. They're just thinking about changing what discipline they're in, you know, or quitting the job, and so I really wish people would come to me way earlier on the road so we could think about some early strategies or early interventions where it doesn't get to the point of burnout or feeling a sense that they just absolutely can't bear whatever and that they they they're actually the person being harmed is the one who needs to leave, versus the person who really needs to leave is the person who's causing the harm.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, absolutely. So it sounds like you know. The take home point is please reach out to your respective individuals on your campus who can help in these situations, because you all are there and I know just in my opportunities to work with you and research and things of that nature as a fellow, you are so receptive and open and so there's just such great people in place. But you have to reach out to them and not suffer in silence and suffer alone.
Speaker 2:
So, and almost every medical school has a diversity office. They may call it multicultural fairs, may have different names to it, but the goal is to help create an inclusive environment. If you don't know who to reach out, go there, even talk to a staff person. If that person feels safer to talk, to start with the staff person and then they can help you link to what faculty or person in leadership is best suited to help you solve whatever the problem is. But please, please, don't hold it in again. Please find somebody to talk to.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely. How did you come into this role, because I can imagine you have so many responsibilities and such a high demand for your time, especially with an entire medical school to think about at every level. What made you pursue being a Chief Diversity Officer? How did you get here?
Speaker 2:
When I first started medicine, my goal was to actually be the director of an FQHC that actually focused on HIV care and all the wraparound services. So I didn't come into medicine to do diversity work. But once I finished my residency and I was a faculty member no surprise in hindsight residents and students who looked like me started gravitating towards me to be their mentor, and unfortunately, they were having the exact same experiences that I had had, and it just felt like nothing was changing. And so I decided that if I was going to make a difference, it was not going to be one patient at a time, it was going to be larger, it was going to be bigger, and so that's when I first decided to start pivoting to diversity work, and we all have to work up.
Speaker 2:
So I started off as a director of medical student diversity, then associate dean, and then an assistant dean, then associate dean, and then I decided to make the leap leap my institution in California, where I was the associate dean and had gone to medical school, done residency, and moved to New Haven Yale School of Medicine when I decided that, really honestly, if I was going to have the impact that I really wanted to have, I had to have a seat at the senior leadership table, which we call the C suite, and for that to happen, I was going to have to be the chief diversity officer at an institution. I was going to be the top person when it comes to diversity, so that I would have the ear of the deans and the presidents of the institution. And so once I came to that conclusion, I started looking for a position where I actually would be the chief diversity officer and would be the one who would set the vision and the tone around diversity, equity and inclusion.
Speaker 1:
That's so fantastic. You know, even being an early career faculty member and thinking about how do you move and navigate in these ways to get to a level like that, you know what advice would you give to, maybe, an early career faculty member who's thinking about? You know clinical practice, yes, research maybe, yes, but even medical education and what you can do in these roles. What advice would you share with them?
Speaker 2:
So I would share for all of us, but definitely for early careers, is you need two type of people in your world. You need a mentor who can help give you the skills that you need to actually do the job, whatever that job is, but you also need a sponsor, and a sponsor is different than a mentor. A sponsor is someone who is in a position of influence, a person who can open doors for you, who is at that C-suite so, when opportunities become available, can mention your name, make sure that you are on high profile projects so that the dean or whoever the leader is of the institution can see you and see your work. So you don't have a mentor and if you don't have a sponsor, my advice to you is to start to figure out who can play those two roles, which are two distinctively different roles in your life. Data has clearly shown that people who have sponsors, their upward trajectory in their careers is significantly faster.
Speaker 1:
How do you go about finding those sponsors? What does it take? Is it just a matter of meeting a lot of different people, involving yourself? What does it take to find that designation?
Speaker 2:
It's the right person, a sponsor, somebody who has influence. So if you are in a position to meet the deanly people, the presidents of your institution, the CEOs then this is an opportunity to have a conversation with your mentor to see if they can make those connections for you, or at least help facilitate making those connections to get you at least in the room with the right people to become your sponsor.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely, and then obviously doing the work to make yourself not stand out, but doing great work so that people can see the impact that you can have. Absolutely, do you just for our audience? Do you find yourself also getting to integrate into the patient care aspect of things, or are you mostly focused on the academic faculty members and trainees?
Speaker 2:
So I'm mainly focused on the academic. So, depending on where your Chief Diversity Officer at. So at Yale, the School of Medicine does not own the hospital. There are two separate entities and so the hospital has its own Chief Diversity Officer. If you're at an institution like my previous one, where the hospital and the medical school were one, I would actually have way more interaction with patient care. So mine is predominantly and it's on students, staff and faculty, but not as much on the hospital side, absolutely, but I do partner with my equiblet in the hospital.
Speaker 1:
Okay and get to collaborate and see how to make the two combine and collide right, because that's what we're here for. We're here to help make sure we're taking great care of patients and learning how to take care of patients, and thus and so, so fantastic. We hope you enjoyed today's episode with Dr Darren Ladimor. He talked all about his role as a Chief Diversity Officer. We talked through what microaggressions are and how you can combat them, as well as talking about how early career faculty members consider mentorship versus sponsorship. If you enjoyed this week's episode with Dr Ladimor, then be sure to tune in to next week's episode as we dive even deeper into our conversation with Dr Ladimor. We talk about the current landscape in medicine, especially from a perspective of diversity, equity and inclusion, and how we can continue to forge forward together.
Speaker 1:
We hope you enjoyed this episode. Do not forget to like. Go ahead and hit that like button, share this podcast and subscribe to the YouTube channel or on any podcast platform that you enjoy listening. As a special gift this week, if you're applying to medical school, we have a free cheat sheet to help you get ready for interviews, and if you want to download that, go visit bmedconnectcom and you'll see where you can click on getting your freebie. We'll also include it in the show notes as well. Always remember until next time, dream without limits, and we'll see you next week for part two with Dr Darren Ladimor. Bye.
