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Professional and Personal Development

(126) DEI journal club benefits in era of banned “compelled speech"

Monday, October 2, 2023
2:45 PM – 3:45 PM East Coast USA Time
Has Audio

    Presenting Author(s)

  • CD

    Christine E. DeMason, MD

    Assistant Professor
    UNC School of Medicine
    Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States

    • Co-Author(s)

  • Doris Lin, MD

    Assistant Professor
    UNC-CH
    Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States

    • Senior Author(s)

  • Amelia F. Drake, MD

    Distinguished Professor
    UNC- CH School of Medicine
    Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States

Disclosure(s):
Doris Lin, MD: No relevant relationships to disclose.
Amelia F. Drake, MD: No relevant relationships to disclose.


Introduction: In February 2023, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors prohibited compelled speech in hiring, admission, or promotion and stated that no representative can “solicit or require an applicant or faculty member to attest to beliefs about political debate or social action.” Since then, the faculty have been trying to meet these new requirements, while balancing the importance of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) to our learners, patients, and research including fulfilling DEI requirements for NIH grant funding.

We started a faculty-led DEI healthcare journal club in order to discuss these important topics. Our study’s objective was to evaluate the journal club participants’ awareness of DEI issues and whether attending affected their daily interactions. Since DEI is not a factor in promotion, involvement is purely voluntary.

Methods: An internet-based survey was sent anonymously to participants after attending the journal club.

Results: 17 of 25 attendees responded to the survey. Most were faculty, with 4 residents and 2 fellows responding. 10 males and 7 females responded with 7 identifying as a member of an underrepresented group in medicine. The majority (94%) felt that the journal club increased their awareness of DEI issues in the workplace, and 88% felt that attending changed the way they think about these issues in the workplace. 71% felt that the journal club led to projects that increased DEI in the workplace with 70% responding that it changed the way they interacted with coworkers. Only 66% felt that it changed the way they take care of patients.

Conclusions: It is our opinion that the understanding of DEI in healthcare is pivotal to the success of Otolaryngology. While there are several limitations to this study including a small sample size and a potential selection bias of those who responded, we found that a DEI journal club increased awareness of DEI topics, and led to an increase in DEI projects as well as better workplace interactions. This type of interaction, i.e. over journal articles and other publications on DEI issue, may be needed to confront what has become a banned topic of overt discussion.