EDI at CATS

The EDI task theme for the month of December will be to celebrate International Human Rights Day which took place on December 10th.

The slogan this year is “All Human, All Equal”

The theme is EQUALITY – Reducing inequities, advancing human rights.  The principles of equality and nondiscrimination are at the heart of human rights.

As our communities grow with a more diverse population.  We need to promote acceptance of all those we work with and take care of.

Here is a link to the United Nations page  https://www.standup4humanrights.org/HumanRightsDay2021/en/

Happy Holidays!

CATS EDI Committee

Madelaine Plourde (Chair), Simon Turner, Laura Donahoe, Gail Darling, Andrew Seely, Biniam Kidane, Jennifer Artz

Every month, the CATS EDI Task Force will take on a theme. This month, it is EDI in Research. 

Achieve Diverse Research Teams and Promote Inclusion

Please visit this CIHR site to help you achieve diverse research teams and promote the inclusion of underrepresented groups in your research projects:

https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/52543.html

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Identify EDI Opportunities

Please visit this website from the Government of Canada New Frontiers in Research Fund.

https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/nfrf-fnfr/edi-eng.aspx

It includes guides for applicants to the New Frontiers in Research Fund and provides information to help overcome challenges and barriers, in addition to identifying opportunities related to EDI in research.

CATS EDI Committee

Madelaine Plourde (Chair), Simon Turner, Laura Donahoe, Gail Darling, Andrew Seely, Biniam Kidane, Jennifer Artz

Every month, the CATS EDI Task Force will take on a theme. This month, it is inclusive leadership. Please find these toolkits and information to help include EDI in your leadership. Also, note that October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month.  

Health Care, Health Sciences & Indigenous Health

The overall goal of Empowering Women Leaders initiative is to achieve transformative systemic change in health care, health sciences, and Indigenous health contexts through the increased participation, visibility, and advancement of women in leadership positions. Read more below.

https://www.leadscanada.net/site/products-services/products/edi-toolkit/overview?nav=sidebar

Small Acts of Inclusive Leadership

Leaders and managers are critical agents in promoting an inclusive culture in the workplace. Managers’ behavior and communication, including those that happen unintentionally, tacitly convey and sustain organizational values and norms. Leaders’ inclusive behavior have powerful effects on office culture. Read more below:

Accessibility

This last article (Inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility: From organizational responsibility to leadership competency) brings forward the addition of “Accessibility” to change EDI to IDEA ( Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility)

https://doi.org/10.1177/08404704211038232

CATS EDI Committee

Madelaine Plourde (Chair), Simon Turner, Laura Donahoe, Gail Darling, Andrew Seely, Biniam Kidane, Jennifer Artz

On this International Women’s Day, we celebrate Women Leaders around the world and here at home. We welcome the opportunity to work alongside our male colleagues as equal partners contributing to the care of our patients and the growth of our specialty. We look forward to the time when  people of all cultures, race, religion, and sexual orientation can work alongside us with equal opportunities and without prejudice.

Together we are better!

*”The Women are Coming is an inspiring video featuring women leaders across the world. Credit to the owner – WWLI. 

Click below to see some of the many outstanding women worldwide that we celebrate:

Unfortunately, the challenges of diversity, equity, and inclusion continue. A 12-year review of URiMs with academic appointments at U.S. medical schools found both women and racial minorities were represented at lower rates than their proportion in the general population. 4 This disparity was most apparent at the highest levels of academic rank, including professor, chair, and dean positions …

• Shoring up the pipeline
• bulletin.facs.org

CATS has taken a thorough review of its history of representation. It looks forward to sharing the results at an upcoming meeting. This honest look at CATS past and present is a necessary step to guiding the future of CATS.

• Annals Bias Mitigation in Recruitment
• Annals Gender Representation in STSA
• Annals Representation in STS
• JTCVS Gender Representation

The following includes a variety of resources including a talk, a commentary, and social media about inequality from the academic perspective.

• A comprehensive presentation by Dr. Onye Nnorom entitled Medicine, Inequities and Black Lives. This talk was given to the uOttawa Faculty of Medicine.  https://uottawacpd.eventsair.com/QuickEventWebsitePortal/edio-webinar/infosite
• A powerful commentary by Zahra Clayborn, a doctoral student at the uOttawa School of Epidemiology and Public Health. Zahra’s experiences and words will hit hard. It is a call to correct the wrongs. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/diversity-epidemiology-phd-pov-1.5633474
• A twitter thread by Holly Witteman that provides sound practical advice on what we can do to build a level playing field in academia. Holly is a Visiting Scientist with the OHRI’s Centre for Implementation Research. Thanks to Jeremy Grimshaw for bringing this forward.  https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1285801718219968512.html

This document is intended to serve as a resource to white people and parents to deepen our anti-racism work. If you haven’t engaged in anti-racism work in the past, start now. Feel free to circulate this document on social media and with your friends, family, and colleagues.

• Anti-Racism Resources

To take immediate action to Fight for Breonna Taylor, please visit FightForBreonna.org.

As part of the CATS commitment, the CATS Eecutive has approved the formation of a Task Force on Equity and Diversity and invites participation from all CATS members. The following including the Harvard Implicit Bias test are recommended for further reading:

• Toward the Science and Practice of Anti-Racism: Launching a National Campaign Against Racism
• Hidden in Plain Sight — Reconsidering the Use of Race Correction in Clinical Algorithms
• Harvard Implicit Bias test:  https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html

The world has seen irrefutable and repugnant acts of violence and police brutality against black, indigenous and racialized communities indicative of systematic institutionalized racism. Unfortunately, such acts of discrimination and violence continue to occur in our own Canadian cities.

Your CATS Executive wanted to reach out to you, our membership, to condemn such actions, and stand in solidarity with all Black, Indigenous and People of Colour. We call on us all, collectively and individually, to be overtly anti-racist to confront and eradicate racism in all its forms, support the reduction of egregious harmful social inequity especially when associated with race, and fully embrace cultural and ethnic diversity for the beautiful gift that it is.

Although our organization has informally made efforts in this direction, we propose a more formal overt institutionalization of commitment to equity and diversity within our CATS organization, and will work to make it happen. We will report back to our membership soon regarding specifics. Please feel free to contact us with your thoughts and suggestions.

Your CATS Executive Committee, Andrew Seely, Gail Darling, John Dickie, Sean Grondin, James Villeneuve, Shona Smith, Najib Safieddine, Basil Nasir, Jonathan Spicer, Simon Turner, Christian Finley, Biniam Kidane, Colin Schieman