Our Commitment to Anti-Racism
The Long Beach Memorial Family Medicine Residency Program is proud to serve the community of greater Long Beach, a diverse, vibrant community full of individuals from a wide variety of socioeconomic, cultural, ethnic, and religious backgrounds.
Our program understands that racism is pervasive in medicine. If we are not conscious of the ways that personally-mediated and institutionalized racism can affect our patients, it can and will deepen disparities in health care.
Our faculty are likewise aware of the fact that our residents and medical students may have previously been—and perhaps may continue to be—affected by racism.
We are committed as individuals and as an organization to being actively anti-racist and dismantling systemic racism requires training and advocacy. We pledge to reflect on our experiences, and to share them with one another in a non-judgmental space. We acknowledge that growth happens in spaces where we can be vulnerable with each other.
We pledge to recruit faculty and residents that are as diverse as the community we serve. A portion of our annual budget will be set aside for efforts to recruit a more diverse faculty and residents.
What do we already have in place?
- Annual faculty-led mandatory workshops focusing on different aspects of being actively anti-racist, including bystander training, case studies on racism in medicine, implicit bias and microaggression awareness and training
- Scholarship for URM students interested in doing a 4th year sub-internship at this program, to offset the cost of housing and travel
- Diversity committee, which meets periodically through the year to advocate for inclusion and diversity
- Quarterly BIPOC support groups for faculty and residents
- Longitudinal anti-racism curriculum – currently in the process of being implemented
What do we have coming down the pipeline?
- Quarterly journal clubs and small-group discussion centered on the role of race in medicine
- Mediated discussion on patient cases centered around health disparities
Our current efforts for diversity and community outreach are detailed below:
Diversity Committee
This interdisciplinary committee was created to promote and ensure diversity and inclusivity among our residents, faculty, staff, and clinic. We aim to advance diversity through:
- discussion and education to create an environment of respect of varied backgrounds – both of our patients and of each other,
- recruitment of a diverse workforce,
- active engagement through service and social justice to address health inequity in our community.
Neighborhood M.E.D. (Medical Enrichment through Diversity)
The Neighborhood MED mentorship program provides medical enrichment opportunities to underserved and disadvantaged undergraduate students through resident physician mentorship. This program has supported individuals who seek a career in medicine and are dedicated to serving the greater Long Beach community. Activities include medical workshops, clinical exposure through shadowing, conferences, and guidance for applying to medical school. We are so proud to share that several graduates of this program have been accepted into medical school!
LGBTQ Outreach
We have started a bi-weekly LGBTQ Clinic, where all patients, regardless of insurance or ability to pay, are seen. Our residents are trained to provide everything—including pre-exposure prophylaxis, gender-affirming hormones, STD treatment, and preventive care for LGBTQ patients.
Doc Is In
We have been part of this program for students seeking careers in the healthcare fields since 1997. Our residents visit three classes of juniors and seniors monthly. These sessions cover information and activities which relate to health issues most pertinent to teens. In addition, the residents serve as role models and sources of information on careers in health care.
Flying Samaritans
Several times annually, our faculty and residents have the opportunity to join the UCI School of Medicine and CSULB’s Flying Samaritans to Valle Redondo, Mexico (about 30 minutes past the border) to care for the local community’s underserved population. These clinics have become a central element of our Global Health area of concentration. (This outreach is on hold due to the global pandemic and will resume at a date TBD in the near future.)