 So today, we have an amazing panel that will be moderated by Adrienne Johnson Ross. And today we're going to talk about health equity, which is an important aspect of the work that we do day in and day out. And it's really important for us to think about health equity. We're going to start organizing this event in celebration of June 10th and are committed to achieving health equity. As president and chief operating officer of UVM Health's network home health in hospice, helping our community members achieve their full health potential is part of our mission. We care for our people wherever they call home and at all ages and stages of life so they can live their fullest lives. Our organization is trusted by our community members and their health care providers. So to deliver exceptional care during some of the most vulnerable and intimate moments of an individual's life, I am honored to be the moderator for today's panel comprised of a remarkable group of health care professionals here who are making a difference in the lives of our black and African community members. First, on our panelist is Dr. Anthony Williams, who is a family doctor in Colchester. Dr. Williams exemplifies how the relationship between a doctor and a patient is one of partnership. Dr. Williams, would you tell the audience a little bit about your background and your journey? Sure. Thank you so much. Please let me know if volume is too low or too high, but yeah, so a little bit about me, Anthony Williams. I actually grew up in New York City in Queens and I spent pretty much all of my life there until I came to upstate New York in Rochester where I went to college and medical school and from then on I continued my training in residency here in Vermont and I stayed on as a faculty member in attending position. My journey is such that, again, being from New York City, it wasn't necessarily the easiest of bringing, per se, so it gave me a lot of insight into the challenges that are faced, particularly for minorities, trying to get out of the city and into sort of safer environments, but then also trying to get into an area of high level profession. And for me, my goal and motivation around the work I do is to try to get back to that and to give opportunities to others who really struggle because I know what that's like. So, oh, it's a little louder. So I hope to, again, connect on the level of somebody who's really tried hard to get out of that position, but then I also try to come from the level of someone who has achieved that, but then wants to see others get there too. So that's always been my passion and it continues to be. Thank you, Dr. Williams. Our second panelist, Dr. Marisa Coleman, is the vice president of DEI and a licensed psychologist at UVMMC. Dr. Coleman, may you tell the audience the same, a little bit about your background in your journey as well? Absolutely. I'm happy to. So I grew up in Minnesota in a bicultural, biracial home. I learned from a really young age that the notion and understanding of health may look different depending on the culture, the background that the family is from. And so that really fostered a desire from a young age to understand the world more broadly, but also to understand who decides what is healthy and unhealthy, who decides what is healing and unhealing. And that led me to specialize in international psychology and human rights, where I was really able to study liberatory practices, movements throughout the world, as well as post-genocide healing. And what I learned through my research was that there are gaps between our Western understanding of health and healing and our non-Western traumatic responses. And so then that led me to really want to explore how to mesh psychology and DEI in more meaningful ways. I'm excited to talk with you all more about that in a moment. Thank you, Dr. Coleman. Our next panelist is Oscar. Oscar, I'm not going to attempt to pronounce your last name, if you will do that, but you are indeed a nurse manager at UVMMC. And your beautiful family is here, one of my partners at Home Health in Hospice, Kathleen, your wife and beautiful children. Nice to see you. Please, Oscar, tell us a little bit about your background and your journey here. Thank you. Thank you, everybody, and it's my pleasure. I'll tell you all about my background. But before I do that, just congratulate all the fathers in the audience. Happy Father's Day. So for those who know me, just a few people, health care is my second career. I come from a background of mechanical engineering. So way back in 2005, I was in California. And I had a fresh start. So I'm like, OK, I can't find a job with what I'm doing. So what do I? Can I just make a different change? Choose something that I really like. Something that I had a passion for. And I just made my mind, oh, I'm going to the health care. It wasn't an easy journey because I had to start from CNA. Over here in Vermont, I think we call them LNA. And so I had to take myself to school, doing school full time and going to working full time. Behold, after four years, I was successful. I became an RN, started working in California. Then I happened to meet a very beautiful woman. And for some reason, most people ask me, how did you end up in Vermont? It's all winter. It's like half a year is winter. And California, you left the sun. And my answer is usually just one thing. Love that makes people do crazy. So I'm here in Vermont. And I joined the University of Vermont Medical Center in 2014, rose through the ranks. Until now, I'm an nursing manager. And one of my passion is I usually want to make a difference, want to make a change on everybody. Luckily, I know everybody. All of these people in this panel have seen all of them. We've interacted. We've talked. And just happy to see everybody. And Oscar, may you respectfully, may you pronounce your last name? I didn't want to ruin it. My last name is Omonia. Omonia. Oh, good. Thank you. Thank you. Our final panelist is Dr. Noma Anderson, who is the Dean of UVM College of Nursing and Health Sciences. Dr. Anderson, will you tell the audience a little bit about your background and journey as well? Thank you. I'm so happy to do that. And like everyone, I'm so happy to be on this panel. When I think back on my journey, I have to say that I am a southerner. I'm from Durham, North Carolina. And I grew up when things were segregated. So I knew my neighborhood, the Black Hospital, and all of my physicians, and dentists, and teachers, and everyone for all the professionals with whom I interacted were African-American. And then I went to, and then I was growing up in the civil rights movement. And my parents were very, very involved in social justice and in civil rights. And went to the march on Washington with my mama. And so that was the era in which I grew up. And then I did my undergraduate work at an HBCU Hampton Institute at that time. And that is where I learned about health disparities and academic disparities and the responsibility that we had in order to make our communities more equitable. And so I don't think if I had not been at an HBCU at that time in our country's history, that I would be the individual that I have become professionally. So I am a speech language pathologist. And my career has been focused on non-bias assessment, understanding the communication of African-Americans, looking at our communication as a valid communication system, and understanding that there is such a need for African-Americans and BIPOC professionals in health care. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. So we will get right into our first panelist, a question to Dr. Anthony Williams. As a doctor, what are some specific steps you take with your black patients to address disparities that affect our community? Thank you so much for that question. And it is a very good question, and not necessarily the easiest per se. But I'd like to think about it in two different ways. And one is I sort of think about it as the difficulties or disparities around well-being and your emotional health, and then the medical aspect and how you were doing in that setting in space. So generally, when I meet an individual, like most people, I say, hi, how are you? It's nice to meet you. But particularly with a black patient, a little bit more of myself comes into the fray. And I try to personalize it a little bit more just to try to establish that connection. Because again, just speaking very frankly, being in Vermont, it's not necessarily the easiest thing to do if you're black or BIPOC or underrepresented. And I think that's something that I collectively share with my patients is sort of that unconscious discomfort. And by doing so, it allows me to establish rapport with patients better and really get to know them. And then likewise, they get to know a little bit more about me. So by doing that, it allows me to also better take care of them and inform medical decisions as a collective group. So most of that happens at the first visit. It generally takes a couple of times to meet up and catch up with them after it's hard to talk with someone for 30 minutes or so and know a lot about them. But after that said and done, we generally will focus on sort of the medical aspects of things. And one thing that really comes to mind, particularly with medical care, is there is a disparity around that. Thinking about things like blood pressure, for example. There's a lot of data that says that blood pressure African-Americans or underrepresented minorities or a BIPOC are at higher risk. Or things like prostate cancer in black men, they're at higher risk. The data around that actually is not 100% accurate. Like there's a lot of data that supports that it's that way. But we have to also look at the fact that many of these individuals in these studies were not treated at the time. They may not have been assessed for prostate cancer at the time. So if they weren't assessed, they're going to get prostate cancer more. But if you have, comparatively, the majority white individuals, they may have been assessed sooner. They may have had testing sooner. They may have been treated sooner. So they're evaluated and treated for these things. So the numbers go down. So bringing that awareness, particularly to patients when they're asking, hey, why is my blood pressure higher than it was before? Or is everyone in my family at high risk of prostate cancer? It's important to take note of that. And I really try to get a sense of what their understanding is of that. And try to sort of help them navigate that process and really give them a roadmap for how to approach that situation. So those are generally a couple of the steps that I take as I approach this. But it doesn't just end with the visit. I think it goes even beyond that, too. Being a family physician is all about all-encompassing care. And really, that's also looking out for them when they're at home or when they're in the community. So I will do home visits for my patients. Or I will meet on a Saturday or a Sunday to have a talk with everyone as a collective group and really try to establish that connection and see how things are going at home. And I think that's really where you kind of break that distinction and really connect on a level where the patient feels like you're there for them. And that's what I want. And that's what I've always tried to do. It's not easy to do as a primary care physician because you're so busy. And you're seeing patients every 15 minutes and you have all this paperwork to do and stuff. So I think if you're really making that effort and putting yourself out there, it helps the patient see that, too. And then you really get a connection then. So that's, I hope that wasn't longer than five minutes, but that's kind of my overall thought. I think it was absolutely terrific. Let's go a little deeper as we talk about disparities and structural inequities in our system here. My follow-up question to you is, back in the 1940s, black doctors represented 4% of doctors in the US. The same is true today. So my question to you is your educational thoughts about that and also deferring to Dr. Anderson for her thoughts as well. Sure, so I wish I had more than five minutes because I have a lot to say about that. But yes, so that percentage is actually very similar now compared to what it was before. I think there was a recent study that was put out saying that the overall percentage of African American, or excuse me, black females that are physicians is around 3% while men is around 2% on average. So it hasn't changed over the last several decades and that's surprising. But if you think about it, it's actually not. So unfortunately, many, majority of underrepresented minorities are in urbanized areas, lower income, less of opportunity to get into a more established school and educational system. So just from the get-go, they don't have the necessary opportunities to get where they want comparative to their majority counterparts. So when you're growing up in those urbanized areas and you don't know how the medical system works, you don't have any family members who know what things are like, you don't know what to look out for. When I grew up, no one in my family is a physician except me, I was the first. And the only doctor I knew was my pediatrician. So I didn't know anything and I didn't know where to go or how to look for the roadmap to being a doctor. And luckily, I was able to volunteer and meet with other individuals who are aware of that and gave me the opportunity to volunteer at hospitals and see these things and situations. So that's a challenge, but then the other part of it is particularly with examinations and standardized testing. So there's a lot of tests that we have to take to become a doctor. And many of those tests, you need to have a certain score to get into the school or to get accepted into a school that you want. And it's harder for individuals who are underrepresented to get higher scores because they may not have the necessary resources. So that in itself is another barrier, let alone the financial components of things, let alone the fact that the social aspects of it, but just thinking about the academics, like that's very hard. And then even beyond that, when you get past all of those things, you still have to be in a professional setting that's majority is white. And that can make for a very difficult situation emotionally and your wellness has to come into play when you're undertaking this very difficult task in medicine, particularly with medical school or residency. So you have several layers of challenges that minorities have to face to get to this position. And you compare that to another individual who may have these opportunities because of the color of their skin. And then you draw these sort of comparative concerns and issues, but yeah. Thank you. I don't think there's much I can add to that. I think you portrayed it beautifully. When you talk about the tests that students take and must pass and get a certain score, that is quite a barrier to getting into our medical education and our health education programs. The admissions are quantitative where they should be more qualitative. They should be more what we call holistic admissions where you look to see what the individual can contribute to the profession. And when we're looking at individuals needing to work with communities of color, we look for students of color because they have so much to bring to the scenario. We want them to be just like you. But when you talk about, when you enter the academic arena, you need role modeling, you need mentors, you need support, you need encouragement. And very often professors do all of that with students who are more like them. And when the students are from a different culture and if the faculty is primarily white, it is less often that faculty will encourage and mentor and support students of color. So students of color report a great deal of microaggressions when they're going through our academic programs and a lack of encouragement. And I'll just say very briefly, I think access certainly is a big part of this. I'm a speech language pathologist. There are so few African-American speech language pathologists. But when I ask a white student, why would you decide to become a physical therapist? Or occupational therapists are a speech language pathologist. 99.9% say my grandmother was seen by physical therapists and my dad was seen by an occupational therapist. They had, they saw these professionals. Lots of African-American BIPOC students because of the lack of access don't see the health professions in operation. Therefore they don't see how rewarding they are. They don't see that as something they can do because it's invisible to them. So I think that's a lot of what happens why they don't choose these fields because they don't know these fields. Thank you, Dr. Anderson. We will get a bit later in our discussion to visible and invisible. Dr. Marisa Coleman, we know our community is greatly affected by mental health. Can you talk about why it's important to have non-traditional models of healing? Absolutely. So as I had mentioned, I am a clinical psychologist that studies liberation movements and trauma-focused treatment. And while I was doing that and developing that specialty, I recognized that over 80% of people throughout their life at one point will experience a traumatic event. And when we think about the disparities in terms of access and mental health treatment and what that looks like for black and brown people, those percentages just skyrocket. And so one of the things that I think is really important to highlight is that when trauma is collective, when it happens in a group, when it happens in a community, the healing also needs to mirror that. It needs to be collective and it needs to happen within a group community. However, the way that we often think about mental health within the Western paradigm is it's an individual encounter in a closed-door room and for many people, that misses the mark. It doesn't get at the systemic nature that is inherent in all of our systems that perpetuates that trauma. So as I was practicing clinically at the Medical Center and in other states, when George Floyd was publicly lynched, it became incredibly difficult for me to have these individual clinical encounters knowing that the patients that I was working with and supporting, particularly around racial healing and racial trauma, I would meet with them for 50 minutes and they would walk out into systems into organizations that were not equipped for their success. And so they were repeatedly harmed and felt a decreased sense of belonging, primarily because many organizations didn't know how to talk about what was happening nationally and the silence perpetuated the trauma. And so thankfully, I was at a place and in a medical center where the conversations began to happen when people started raising their voices and saying, we need to be talking about this. That there were leaders that supported that movement and supported that need. For me, how I bridge the gap between psychology and DEI is that the client or the patient became the organization. How do we broaden the conversation and elevate the voices within our health network, within the UVM Medical Center that for years had been trying to have these conversations and trying to diversify what healing looks like but didn't feel like they had the access or didn't feel that they were invited to the table or into the right meetings. And so that's something that is really central to me and to my heart. Now, in terms of the nontraditional modes of healing, in liberation psychology, it talks about how the patient or the client is the expert of their own experience. That is very different than what many of us were taught in our grad training or throughout our professional endeavor. That there is this power dynamic and privilege that's inherent in a provider-client relationship. Well, in liberation psychology, that's dismantled. And really, it encourages healers to think about the clinical presentation from a historical context so that we don't perpetuate the trauma. We can't understand how somebody may be suffering and how they're making meaning of it if we don't understand the community in which they're a part of and the historical context. So if we, for example, one of the influencers of my work is Dr. Joy DeGru, who is the founder of Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. When we think about, for black people, the years of systemic oppression, murder, trauma, and how that was even perpetuated after the Emancipation Proclamation with the Jim Crow era and then still the violence that's happening that's being televised internationally and the trauma that that results in. So if we think about the years of the impacted trauma and then the years of how much healing has not been available, the lack of access, of course there are going to be remnants of that and of course it's gonna pass down through generations. We see that in our workforce, we see that in our workplaces. So more to say on that, but I'll pause there. Thank you. A bit of a follow-up question and feel free to add to what you were saying. What are your thoughts on integrating that alternative non-traditional model for healing into a primary care setting where 80% of African-Americans blacks access care? Great question. I know Dr. Williams and I collaborate and certainly work together within the DEI space. I think it's really important. Throughout the Health Network, there are actually initiatives that are happening related to that where psychiatric care and psychological care is being infused into primary care clinics. I think that taking a multidisciplinary approach is crucial because again, how we define who are the healers changes depending on the communities that we're a part of. And so even throughout the world, the people that may do the healing may not be the people that have the most prestigious degree or have gone to school the longest. It could be the paraprofessionals. It could be the faith religious leaders. It could be the teachers, right? And so when we think about how to infuse that, I think it's really important to also acknowledge that healing has to be multidimensional, the mind, the body, and the spirit, right? We oftentimes will think about, particularly in my field of psychology, we'll think about just the mind and not recognize that, for example, traumatic healing has to touch the body because our body holds memory. I don't know if Dr. Williams, if you have anything you'd like to add. Dr. Williams, please. Sure, and again, just like Dr. Coleman was saying, I think that's one of the biggest challenges, particularly in primary care, that we're facing just with everything going on outside of race and inequity is COVID and all of these things happening. So mental health disparities is at an all-time high. And what we're also unfortunately seeing is that we're sort of losing our fellow colleagues due to the capacity and the difficulty with managing this. So it makes it hard from the primary care perspective to mitigate this. And again, what Dr. Coleman was referencing is the fact that we're coming up with sort of these collaborative approaches that may not necessarily involve someone who has a degree. It may be someone who you connect with more and utilizing that might have more benefit than finding someone who doesn't necessarily know the community or the group or they learned in their graduate school career that A, B, and C is the most effective way to approach this situation. So again, looking at the individual, looking at the community and sort of approaching it from that more personalized perspective has greater yield. And I suspect more success in the long run too. So one thing that has been ongoing is sort of again this multidisciplinary approach and working with our clinical psychologists and working with our psychiatrists to connect and communicate and work with patients as groups and getting them connected with other group members not necessarily within our hospital per se but even in the community and really trying to establish those connections better. So I agree entirely. Excellent, thank you very much. Oscar, as a nurse, you have the opportunity to interact with patients quite a bit during their hospitalization. How was your identity helped? How has your, excuse me, identity helped advocate for underserved patients? Thank you so much and first of all, I would like to just to recognize for the last few years, I think maybe two or three, the wonderful work that is happening within the network level and what Dr. Steve Lefner, Hunter and Melissa are doing in making sure that at least everybody is educated and we understanding just generally what is going on. So on the context of the question that you are asking, how my identity has helped. So I would like just to bring you guys back to what we've seen, the event that we've seen for the last two and a half years and this is just with when COVID came upon us and you'll find that if you look at the statistics in the country, the number of black or the BIPOC population that generally died relative to the white population. And I don't wanna go far, I can just bring you back to our backyard, the hospital itself. In the hospital we had twice the number of BIPOC admitted with COVID than our white counterparts. And the second thing that we learned from just there with the COVID is the fact of when the vaccination came, we were the lowest to enroll for the vaccinations. And this is just because of the mistrust that we've had with vaccination previously. There's a lot of history upon that. So one thing that we can learn from COVID itself, there's disparity and there's mistrust that we do have for the healthcare. So how do we make these changes? How can I make these changes? How, what have I done to make sure there's a difference? So when you come to disparity with the healthcare delivery, I do still think that much of it can be done through legislation and it can be done just by what we guys are talking today, what we are trying to discuss. We know what is going on to the community. Do we need to start movements? So that's what I think disparity can be solved. But when it comes to trust, that I think I can make a change and that I make a change every single day. I do have a wide population of patients that come in the flow. We first have to acknowledge that Vermont itself, depending on what data you are looking at, we are about 90, 90 to 95% white. And the other community, the BIPOC, we are less than 10%. And you do find that our patient population and even the staff that we are having, that is more of an equivalent representation. So what I can do and the changes that I do make is just developing a trusting relationship with these people when they come into the hospital and trust may be as simple as just paying attention and asking question. And when they come to the hospital just asking people, I encourage all my patients, keep asking why. When you are told to do something or you want a reason why you are being told to take a certain medication, ask why. If you ask more than three why's, that will develop compliance. You will adhere to your medication regimen. The most important part is leaving the hospital because sometimes they come in, the doctors prescribe the medicine, we sit with them and we clearly know that these people, they are not gonna stick to this medication, they don't have insurance. So that's when I take the opportunity, how can I connect these people to the available resources? Because there are resources around, there are resources in the community, but we are not tapping on those resources. So just trying to let people know where the resources are and how to tap on them. The other thing I do encourage a lot of people and these have seen even practically examples that has happened to most people. When our community, people from our community, the BIPOC community come to the hospital, sometimes the language barrier. And often sometimes we are so busy to explain to these people what's really going on. I have seen an example where a patient was on my floor, stayed there for a day, the following day, when I was like, why is the person here? What's really going on? Because there were some things that they needed that I could not provide. And just it so happened that she would understand my language. So talking to this person I realized, she was admitted because she ate too much salt. She could have been helping the ED just by coming in, given some hydration, she could have gone home. But someone was so busy that nobody bothered to look for a translator to know why she was there. Had anybody done anything, she shouldn't have been admitted. And my second part of the question I do think, and I do encourage myself, is just stay curious and practice active listening. Listen to understand, don't listen to respond, because we are diverse. And even among the BIPOC itself, even among the black people themselves, we are diverse. Somebody from South may be completely different from somebody way down from Africa. We are all diverse. And just sitting down and listening to people makes a very big change. Be curious, stay curious. Thank you. Thank you, Oscar. One follow-up question here that I hear applause. Very well said. Often marginalized people are invisible. I think Dr. Anderson, you mentioned the word invisible. What would be your recommendation to a health system to help make visible those that can easily slip into the realm that is being invisible, like with the example that you shared with us? I do think that there are resources in the community, but we are not tapping into these resources. And we also have to acknowledge what's really going on and how can we tap into most of this. So I do believe just, for example, in the hospital, there should be a person designed, or our case managers, should be trained in a way that we can easily identify. These people can easily slip through the cracks because there are a lot that keep on slipping through the cracks. And just encouraging, especially from the perspective of Dr. Anthony, who happened to see these people in the community, if we can have a proper way of identification, just the people that can easily slip through the crack and try to follow them, try to encourage them. And the most powerful thing is education. If we can educate these people, because when you educate people, they become jointly in making decisions regarding their lives. We are not making those decisions for them. So looking for a way on how do we put all the resources out over there for if we lack some and give people of our kind, the BIPOL community out there to try to look at this for these people and encourage these people, show them we are all and everything is so that they don't slip through the crack. Thank you, Oscar, very much. Dr. Anderson, question for you. As Dean of the University of Vermont College of Nursing and Health Sciences, what would you like to share with the community about pursuing degrees in healthcare? Thank you for that question. I'm gonna start by repeating what the panelists have already said, that many African-American, many BIPOC individuals distrust the healthcare system. And many people of color are turned off by the healthcare system. They feel as though they're not listened to and they don't feel comfortable, many don't feel comfortable talking to or being treated by healthcare providers who are different from them and different from their communities. But what we realize is that BIPOC patients have better results when they are treated by BIPOC healthcare providers. This means that the representation of African-Americans and BIPOC individuals in the healthcare system has to be better than it is right now. The 4% of African-American physicians is dismal. And for this reason, I'm so thrilled that we're here to talk about this. And one way to address health disparities is for there to be more BIPOC and African-Americans in the healthcare fields. And so it's impossible to even name all of the professions in healthcare. So we think about physicians and nurses. I want you to think about speech language pathologists. We've got pharmacists and physician assistants and medical assistants and dental hygienists and physical therapists and occupational therapists and exercise scientists and nutritionists. The list goes on and on. And there are so many educational pathways that can be taken to enter the healthcare. It is healthcare professions are so rewarding. And there are some fields that require one year of education. There are some that require two years of education, some that require four years of education, some that require a master's degree, some that require a doctoral degree, some that require advanced training in medicine or pharmacy or dentistry. So there are many routes to entering the healthcare field. And so one of the truths is that while there are many ways to enter the healthcare field educationally, the road is not a level one and it's not an easy one to access. We talk about systemic racism or discrimination and institutional racism or discrimination and one of the most devastating ones is educational, academic disparities and systemic racism and discrimination. One of the heartbreaking things is how intentional it is. And so when you look at why more BIPOC individuals are not in healthcare, lots of it pertains to our educational system. So when we think about public school education, schools receive funding based upon their tax base. So if you live in a community that is economically depressed, the tax base is depressed and the schools are depressed. That's intentional. When you look at where the most prestigious public schools are, they're in communities where there is a higher tax base. That's intentional. And so when we look at the pathways for individuals to enter higher education, regardless if it's healthcare or any discipline, we have to look at the very beginning of the educational journey and it is uneven and it is discriminatory and it is unfair. But let's talk about once you get in, once you get there, you have traveled a journey that is very, very difficult. So while I'm encouraging more BIPOC students to enter healthcare, please do that. In truth be told, it's not the easiest of journeys to partake because of the environment actually. And so I talked about microaggressions that occur and that can be so difficult to overcome. So students need encouragement, they need mentoring, they need support and they need resilience because it is wonderful, it is so heartening when you see BIPOC African American students succeed. And they do so because of their commitment to improving the healthcare outcomes of BIPOC individuals as our panelists have talked about. Can you imagine if we had tens of hundreds of BIPOC individuals with the types of commitment that Anthony and Oscar and Marisa have talked about? If we could multiply these three people by tens of hundreds of individuals, healthcare disparity would be eliminated. The healthcare of our BIPOC communities would be elevated and that comes from having people of color in larger numbers coming into our educational systems and graduating. Now I have to say that our educational programs must have DEI education for everyone who is there. The responsibility of improving the healthcare of BIPOC individuals and BIPOC communities can't rest on the three people sitting here or individuals like them. It is the responsibility of all practitioners who take the oath to be healthcare providers. And it is amazing today in the 21st century the myths that are still perpetuated regarding our treating BIPOC individuals. Medical students and practicing physicians feel as though African-Americans have a higher tolerance for pain. Obviously they have never treated me. Students reported in 2015, medical students, that they were taught that African-American patients have thicker skin. You know, just a lot of myths and lots of healthcare professionals are taught that families of color are non-compliant. Those are myths, but they are perpetuated. So just as we need more people of color, students of color in healthcare, we need better education for everyone who was in healthcare. DEI for all, DEI education is the way to improve. I will close by every opportunity I have to speak on this topic. I always talk about the platinum rule. And lots of us grew up learning the golden rule and that is treat others as you wanna be treated. But the platinum rule says treat others as they want to be treated. And the way to do that is to listen and to care. Thank you. Absolutely, excellent. Thank you, panelists. We are now, I am looking for Karen Vastine with a mic, there you are, taking a few questions from the audience if we're doing that. And I can share a mic with Oscar. We can all start sharing up here. Any questions from our audience? Hi. Firstly, it's amazing to see a panel full of black and brown individuals. So I'm appreciative of that representation. As a black woman with a master's in healthcare administration who ended up in healthcare by chance, it wasn't until I moved to Vermont that I realized, well, one, it's the second white estate. I didn't know that until I moved here, right? But then two, the representation in our medical facilities across Vermont for our BIPOC communities is lacking. So I guess my question to you all is for an individual who is BIPOC, particularly African American and female, and LGBTQ, right? Who aspires to be in administration to invoke similar levels of change to you all and some in the audience. What advice do you have for those of us who are looking to break, because for us it's not a glass ceiling, right? It's a concrete ceiling, right? And if we aren't given the tools to break through, we sort of feel that where we are, we have to remain complacent. What advice do you have for those of us who are looking to rise above that? I would love a chance to speak to this. Thank you, Amber, for asking that question. I think that it is crucial for us to receive mentorship and to be open to mentoring. And what I mean by that is, if there are opportunities to connect with people that may be either in positions that you aspire to hold and or are also having a very similar vision for what the professional development that they want or the story that they've shared, connecting with them and reaching out and saying, will you mentor me? Can I meet with you once a month? Can you tell me about your background and your journey to get into this position? And what I've realized is that for my own journey, in doing that, there's a level of vulnerability that is needed to allow somebody to get to know you and what some of your past experiences have been professionally, but also some of the fears you may hold in putting yourself out there and being open to the feedback and leaning into the vulnerability, I think can be a really powerful way. And then the other thing that I will share, I've been, I've shared with anybody that has asked or that has listened on some listening sessions we've done. The role that I hold, I really attribute so much of that to being in the right place at the right time, but also having a thought and a feeling and saying it, even when I was terrified and really trying to be brave, even when my voice was shaking, even when I was crying with senior execs in the room, but I was hurting and I couldn't be in an organization that wasn't going to also have the conversations. And so I just started to have them because I was waiting for other people to and it wasn't happening. And so if there's something that you are seeing that you are wanting to say, sometimes it's just being brave and pushing through the shaky voice and just saying it, knowing that you have us behind you, that you have so many people in the health network that are supporting you and wanting to see your success. I'd like to also just add to that a little bit. That was really wonderful as well, Dr. Coleman, but Amber, again, I think it's very important to also kind of patch yourself on the back for getting so far and really even just today putting yourself out there, asking that question, just expressing who you are and what you've been through, making us aware of it as well. And I'd like to answer this question by just sort of harking back to a little bit of, again, the way I grew up, just academically, I thought I was an okay student. I did the best I could, right? But I didn't get here by myself. There's no way that would have happened. So I had to have other groups get me to where I could get into position to do better. And I think it's also our responsibility to help facilitate that for individuals such as yourself or individuals who are still looking to continue that journey. So it's a two-way street. And really, putting yourself out there is amazing, but we also need to put ourselves out there and do our part. And maybe I'm just to tell you last thing, both whatever Dr. Melissa Coleman and Anthony just said, I can summarize it as a hiring manager. We are always taught and we've gone through all this that we should always recognize the kind of cloud that we're having. And we are encouraged. Sometimes when we are hiring, if we don't see the candidates are diverse enough, we can usually ask, I need a diverse crowd for me to continue. But always develop those connections and never cease. Don't settle. Dr. Anderson, I'm gonna be a teacher. I am a teacher, but I'm gonna be a teacher. I firmly believe in the mentoring. I firmly believe in the role modeling. But I tell students, be as smart as you can be. Work as hard as you can. You need to be brilliant, which is sad to say. But whenever, what you hear all the time, we've gotta be smarter and that is so true. And if I say that very often, students say that's not fair. It's reality, it's reality. So you need those that will guide you and support you as you climb that ladder to break through that cement ceiling. But you've got to have the skills. And you've got to have what I found out is the confidence. You know, so the teacher in me always says, be as smart as you can be. Be as skilled as you can be. Be as confident as you can be. And people will see that. Yes, excellent. Well, thank you, everyone. I'm actually up. So this is really a question for, I guess, anybody, including my mom. So as a business student, I feel like a lot of these issues, kind of switching gears, stem from a business perspective. So I forget which one of you mentioned managers. So from a business lens, what systems or tactics can be implemented to better educate managers on this needs to happen so people don't slip through the cracks, you know? So I feel like that's another angle that needs to be addressed because, yeah, we're motivating medical students and everybody to get into the field, but from a different lens, if people who are managing these individuals aren't educated and don't know what they need to know, that's another barrier, making it so this doesn't progress or it can't go anywhere further. So I just wanted to know what you all think about that. So I am his mother. From an operational and administrative standpoint, we are truly blessed to have Dr. Jackie Hunter at UVM Network, just truly blessed. She is bringing the lens of diversity, equity and inclusion for our leaders to be able to adequately, sufficiently and beyond such support other leaders in managing, empowering and leading a diverse workforce as well as diverse leaders. So that is where it begins. It starts with definitely education and training, accountability, responsibility and holding ourselves most of all accountable for that work. It starts with addressing the systemic disparities and equities in education, in primary care and behavioral health and like the work that Oscar does on the floor, on the front lines with our patients in the community every day. He and his wife do that kind of work for us. So it starts with definitely with that education and our commitment as a system to do such. So that is a brief synopsis of that answer to the question, Dennis Ross. Today's discussion has illustrated the impact of healthcare providers can have in a changing in health trajectory for their patients both physically, mentally and equitably. In order to continue making progress, we need people who are willing to choose careers in healthcare and serve as leaders in addressing health disparities prevalent for our black and African-American community members. Together, we can create positive change. Thank you all for being here today, your time and attention and your continued vigilance to helping us make our community a better place. Thank you all. Thank you everyone, we really appreciate it. And as we get ready to close and get ready, I just want to take a moment to thank the amazing panelists for their time and their energy on a Sunday, Father's Day as we move forward. So just really want to take that time. And as we close, one thing I want to say is this work, it takes all of us. We can't talk about healthcare without talking about health equity. And so we know that we have work to do. We know that when sometimes when our BIPOC folks come into the hospitals here in Vermont, they don't feel safe, they don't feel wanted. And we want to be able to build a trust in the community. And it's gonna take time, it's a journey. And as we do that, we need every one of you to help us build that trust so that we can make sure that our communities are better. Thank you so much and have a great day.