By Khadijah Booth Watkins, Associate Director, Joseph Betancourt, M.D., M.P.H. and Gene Beresin, Executive Director

Posted in: Multimedia, Podcast

Topics: Culture + Society

When it comes to structural racism in health care, commitment to change stems from the top in creating physically and emotionally healthier communities. Today, on ‘Shrinking It Down,’ special guest Joseph Betancourt, MD, MPH, Vice President and Chief Equity and Inclusion Officer at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), joins Gene and Khadijah to help us understand how seriously MGH takes this charge.

Dr. Betancourt has focused his life’s work on issues of equity and social justice, and has a long history of researching these issues and creating educational tools to improve cross-cultural interactions and increase diversity and equity in healthcare systems. In this episode, he talks through some of the things MGH is doing to improve hospital culture. Included in this is training to help hospital leaders, clinicians, and staff make progress in tackling implicit bias, and the need to measure and demonstrate this progress, so that training doesn’t become just another ‘check-the-box’ tool.

Thank you for joining in this conversation. Do you have a comment or question about MGH’s efforts to address and eliminate racism, and achieve equity and social justice? Write to us!

Media List

Follow along with the conversation.

• Joseph Betancourt, MD, MPH (Massachusetts General Hospital)
• Mongan Institute for Health Policy Center (Massachusetts General Hospital)
• Quality Interactions
• Puppies are Harder to Raise than Babies (Fatherly)
• In The News (MGH Clay Center)
• How Mass General Brigham Plans to Dismantle Racism In And Outside Hospital Walls (WBUR)
• Mass General Brigham President and CEO’s Update to Employees On Racial Injustice (Mass General Brigham)
• Mass General Structural Equity 10-Point Plan (Massachusetts General Hospital)
• Moving Toward Anti-Racism for Our Future Generations, featuring O’Neil Britton, MD (MGH Clay Center)
• Not me! Doctors, Decisions, and Disparities in Health Care (Cardiovascular Reviews & Reports)
• Unequal Treatment: Confronting Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Health Care (National Academies Press)
• New Art Exhibit Shines Light on Mental Illness in Unique Way (McLean Hospital)
• It’s not up to black people to cure white racism (The Boston Globe)
• Peak 2020: Early Christmas cheer hilariously crushed by ‘saddest’ Rockefeller Center tree (USA Today)
• Biden on nominating diverse Cabinet: ‘I’m going to keep my commitment’ (Channel 3000)
• Mending a House Divided: Bringing Peace and Good Will to the Holidays (MGH Clay Center)

 

Tune in wherever you get your podcasts – just search for ‘Shrinking It Down.’

Episode produced by Sara Rattigan

Music by Gene Beresin