46.1 ADVANCING EQUITY THROUGH PSYCHIATRIC EDUCATION

Abstract

Addressing the structural racism inherent in the medical and psychiatric education process, from medical school admissions up through fellowship training, requires an intentional, multilayered strategy. This presentation will: 1) summarize efforts to help increase workforce diversity and true representation; 2) describe examples of learning experiences that do not recreate or perpetuate the extant structural injustice present in the psychiatric training process; and 3) provide meaningful ways that training program directors, faculty, and mentors can support psychiatry trainees and early career psychiatrists’ role in health equity efforts. Medical and psychiatric educational processes must engage in meaningful practice change in order to realize a more socioeconomically and racially representative mental health workforce that is well-educated and supported to address health disparities in the mental health care of Black and Latinx children. Academic literature is available to guide training programs interested in improving their health equity education. Attendees will learn how each pillar of psychiatric training program development, including didactics, readings, supervision, and advisement, can be re-examined and recreated to provide a health equity lens to all psychiatry trainees and foster their interest and involvement in health equity work. There is a need for a social justice framework throughout the medical and psychiatric education process about topics including a holistic review of applicants, knowledge of structural trauma, creation of pipeline programs in collaborations with historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and majority-minority medical schools, and collaborations of an interdisciplinary nature.