Monique Porter, FACHE
Director of Strategic Initiatives and Oncology
Newton-Wellesley Hospital
Regent for Massachusetts
Message From Your ACHE Regent
Summer 2022
Happy Summer! I hope you all have had the opportunity to take some time off, been able to recharge and find your best self. As leaders for our amazing workforce, our teams depend on us being at our full sufficiency and continually evolving our support to meet their needs and that of our healthcare community.
Along those lines, I wanted to share a key takeaway from a recent DEI training here at Newton-Wellesley Hospital. We all recognize the importance and value that the DEI lens brings to healthcare, especially after witnessing the pandemic exacerbate the current disparities. So, as someone whose education was in the sciences, understanding the neuroscience behind our biases really resonated with me.
Our brains work without our expressed cognition 98% of the time. It’s a lot of work to keep ourselves alive! When you think about all the actions that our bodies take without any conscious direction, it truly is an amazing feat. At the same time, it is incredibly humbling to understand that you are realistically in control of 2% of what your body, and mind, do. This is of particular importance when you consider the decisions you make on a daily basis and the unconscious biases we all have.
Carrying that concept forward a bit more, diversity was presented as three different dimensions in the context of being a leader1. The primary dimension is the hand you’ve been dealt – your age, ethnicity, physical traits, etc. that relates to all of us, shapes our world view, and are mostly unable to be changed. The secondary dimension are attributes that we have some choice to gravitate toward and can be considered acquired. That would include your education, work or other life experiences, your health status, religion, or family status. Lastly, the tertiary dimension includes things like your work location, your chosen field (is it clinical or not?), job title or management status. All of the factors in each dimension shape your day-to-day decision making – whether you know it or not.
Of the millions of pieces of information our brains are processing each day, many are unconsciously influenced by the biases we inherently have. So, it’s not that you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover. It’s that you will judge a book by its cover and know that it’s because you’re human. Once you acknowledge that fact, you can actively work on recognizing when those biases might be occurring and how to reframe your decisions. Building awareness for DEI requires commitment at the organizational level, as well as at the personal level. Check out the Executive Career Diversity Navigator at Home – Executive Diversity Career Navigator (edcnavigator.org), read the wonderful reflections from our chapter leaders News (massache.org), including the latest that recognizes Women’s Equality Day, and learn more about our ACHE of MA DEI Committee and the opportunity to make a difference at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (massache.org). Lastly, taking the time to recognize those making a difference in DEI is critical. Please consider nominating an organization for our 4th Annual Diversity Leader Award that will be presented at the November 1st Fall Conference: Journey to Equitable Health: How Do We Get There and Who is Leading the Way? Nomination details are on the ACHE of MA DEI homepage listed above.
Thanks for taking the time to read my thoughts and keep on learning!
Take care,
Monique
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