The mission of the Education Workgroup is to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the department via educational opportunities; support the educational and career development needs of our diverse staff at all levels; empower our diverse community of patients through outreach projects. To support these goals we develop programs and opportunities that engage the department, the community, and future employees.

In an effort to foster a welcoming and culturally literate culture in our department, we hold events that educate, address substantive issues in DEI, and celebrate the culture and heritage of our diverse patients and providers. We recognize the privileged position we are in as being part of one of the primary medical institutions in the world, and as such whenever possible try to make our DEI material publicly available so others may benefit from it.

Recognizing Diversity, Celebrating Our Cultures, and Bringing the Community into the Hospital

The Education Workgroup of the MGH Department of Radiology DE&I Committee holds an annual Diversity Week. In 2020, we extended our programming and began a partnership with the newly established BWH Radiology DE&I Committee to provide interdepartmental programming which was also made publicly available. Continuing medical education credits were offered to doctors, nurses, and radiology technologists. Attendees from across the country joined us to discuss and hear topics such as the patient experience for gender-diverse individuals in radiology, microaggressions in medicine, building a sustaining presence in developing countries during strife, how to better engage communities of color in research and patient care, and the DE&I strategies and experiences from other programs and national organizations.

Additionally, the workgroup is involved in recognizing and celebrating cultural events. For instance, the MGH Radiology DE&I Committee worked with a number of community non-profits, artists, and historians as well as institutional partners (the Office of Equity & Inclusion and the Center for Diversity & Inclusion) to provide programming that educated, entertained, celebrated and uplifted black voices. Our virtual, free Juneteenth program took place on June 18th and 19th and was made available to the public. We explored the topics of teaching hard history, how street art brought the community of Lynn together, heard a discussion on the intersection of race and art, virtually walked the Black Heritage Trail, and looked to the future with Harvard’s own LaShyra Nolen. We celebrated Black pioneers at MGH as well as the culinary talents and backgrounds of MGH Nutrition Services.