OSR Liaison Update - Group on Student Affairs: Committee on Diversity Affairs (GSA-CODA)

July 2009

The GSA-Committee on Diversity Affairs (GSA-CODA) is a new committee of the AAMC's existing Group on Student Affairs and replaces the group's GSA-Minority Affairs Section. On June 25, the AAMC's Board of Directors approved the creation of the new professional development group - the Group on Diversity and Inclusion (GDI). In addition, the Group on Student Affairs- the Committee on Diversity Affairs (GSA-CODA) was formed. The GSA-CODA will serve as a committee focused on student- related diversity issues, on a local, regional, and national basis, with respect to student recruitment, admissions, and retention.

This was the committee's first meeting and it was primarily dedicated to setting priorities for the committee. The chair, Karen Lewis, gave a re-cap of the first meeting of the Group on Diversity and Inclusion. The committee defined the criteria for designating the medical schools' Diversity Affairs Officers (DAO).

CODA voted to sponsor the Stanford University SOM LGBT-MEA (Medical Education Assessment) Survey. There are 3 phases; Phase Two is a survey of medical students:

Focus on Competency Based Education - Scientific Foundations for Future Physicians: Report of the AAMC-HHMI Committee was discussed. This report defines scientific competencies for future medical school graduates and for undergraduate students interested in a medical career. Cultural Competency - Institutionalized training on cultural competency and the teacher-learner environment were discussed.

Cultural competency is paramount in medical education. There were discussions on the definition of "cultural competency," and ideas were exchanged to find the most effective ways to ensure that future physicians would be competent. Not only will there have to be more effective ways to teach cultural competency, but it will be equally important to assess each student's level of competence. LCME Standard IS-16 was discussed.

Academic Medicine Pipeline/Recruitment Efforts - There will be a focus on creating and nurturing an academic medicine pipeline. This will help to expose students to academic careers and help to encourage them to enter such careers. This needs to continue into residency programs. It is very important to have diversity among our faculty which can lead to diversity among our leadership. There were also discussions of increasing recruitment and retention of Native Americans, African American males and Hispanic males. Career fairs at annual meetings have been successful and will hopefully be expanded to regional meetings. The committee is interested in establishing partnerships with different student organizations to ensure the appropriate information reaches as many students as possible.

Pre Health Advisors Development - Continued work with pre-health advisors and establishing ongoing collaborations with them was identified as another area of importance. Reaching and providing information, especially to pre-health advisors at minority institutions and/or institutions that do not have the resources to join the NAAHP, will be further explored. CODA will work with advisors and others in implementing the LCME Standard MS-8. "Each medical school must develop programs or partnerships aimed at broadening diversity among qualified applicants for medical school admission. The committee will also work with NAAHP to develop innovative ways for advisors to interface with CODA for the benefit of training and disseminating information on how to advise URM students, students coming from different backgrounds and with different life experience.

If you have any questions, comments, criticisms, or compliments please feel free to contact me.

Respectfully submitted by,

Phillip Murray, MS4
OSR Liaison to GSA-CODA
Medical College of Georgia
Phmurray@students.mcg.edu

Contact Us    © 1995-2009 AAMC    Terms and Conditions    Privacy Statement