The OAFP is committed to an environment that is equitable, inclusive and diverse for not only its members but for all individuals. We endeavor to be anti-racist in everything we think, speak, and act. This page contains information that can be used for individuals on different legs of their journey.
Please contact us if you have additional ideas, and/or information you would like to include.
The OAFP Task Force on Equity Inclusion & Diversity meets every other month. Email louisem@oafp.org if you are interested in joining us.
OAFP Anti-Racism Declaration
The Oregon Academy of Family Physicians declares that racism is a public health crisis that has led to disproportionate allocations of medical and social resources to people of color and socially marginalized groups with significant consequences on the physical and mental wellbeing of these populations. The OAFP recognizes that structural racism is an upstream social determinant of health that has and continues to oppress individuals and populations without biological basis. The downstream health outcomes of this have been well documented in medical literature including but not limited to higher infant and maternal mortality rates,
lower access to health insurance, excess mortality from stroke, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes and overall higher burdens of chronic disease among marginalized communities.
This declaration serves to highlight the actionable ways in which the OAFP is committed to identifying, confronting and dismantling racism within our organization and the field of healthcare as a whole to fulfill our commitment to promoting equity, health and vitality to all Oregonians.
- Education: Offering CME to our members including implicit bias training and cultural sensitivity training, maintaining a page on the OAFP website for anti-racism resources.
- Medical training: Supporting anti-discrimination initiatives with the collaboration of the ORCA-FM program, supporting physician preceptors in working with students and residents from diverse backgrounds, helping recruit physicians to rural practices.
- Opportunity/recruitment efforts and making leadership opportunities available to all constituents across the state rather than promoting from within.
- Coalition building: Working alongside local public health departments and non-profit community organizations with grants from private philanthropy and the Oregon Health Authority to increase access to COVID vaccines and education to minority communities.
- Policy, advocacy and lobbying: Adopt anti-racist policies within the organization and reaffirm existing policies that expand access to care for racial and ethnic minorities. Support state legislation that ensures equitable access to health insurance and primary care to all communities.
There is increasing awareness that medical care alone cannot adequately improve overall health without addressing the human condition by which people live. The OAFP is committed to adopting and sustaining policies to eradicate health care disparities perpetuated by racial, ethnic, and societal discrimination. We recognize that these are initial efforts that will continue to evolve as our organization listens to and learns from patients, physicians, and community partners across the state.
Resources
Our aim is to meet quarterly and discuss books or podcasts. The first meeting will be virtual and will be held on Thursday, December 8 from 5:30 to 6:30 pm.
Sign up for our newsletter or check back to see when the next EID Book Club session will be.
Click HERE if you are interested in participating.
We would like to connect individuals interested in medicine to existing family medicine programs. If you know of such a program, please let us know as we are trying to develop a comprehensive list of opportunities.
Western University/COMP-Northwest DREAM Program
In 2018, COMP-Northwest launched the DREAM (Diversity Recognized Emphasized and Assimilated into Medicine) program, and annual cost-free, four day-long pathway program created to help students from groups historically underrepresented in medicine consider careers in health care, especially physician careers.
This program has successfully prepared many participants to apply to medical school. Almost every year, DREAM participants apply to COMP/COMP-Northwest and have been successfully accepted.
To learn more about the program, click HERE.
Racism as a Public Health Crisis
The 2021 OAFP Congress of Members voted to accept Resolution # 1 – Racism as a Public Health Crisis.
Click HERE to read the final resolution.
Click HERE to read our June 2020 statement regarding institutional racism.
“The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander
“We need to do something to change the system!”
“Pedagogy of the Oppressed” by Paulo Freire
“This book changed my life.”
“Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America” by Ibram X. Kendi
“Even my high school student found this book extremely insightful. A must-read to wrap your head around the historical and inherent racism in America and white-Euro-centric societies.”
“Heavy” by Kiese Laymon
“We need more memoirs that bring black memory to the forefront.” “Powerful”
“The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together” by Heather McGhee
“exploration of racism and the zero sum mentality”
“So You Want to Talk About Race” by Ijeoma Oluo
“Debunks myths and sheds a light on nuances.”
“The Women’s House of Detention: A Queer History of a Forgotten Prison” by Hugh Ryan
“Tells the true story of a brutal woman’s prison that incarcerated individuals for crimes realted to gender-nonconforming behavior and race.”
“Superior” by Angela Saini
“Specifically about medicine, although it is more about racism than anti-racism.”
“Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents” by Isabel Wilkerson
Demonstrates how American Blacks have been set at the lowest level of society through historical and contemporary oppression which was and still is legally sanctioned.”
If you have a book that you would like to recommend, please send your suggestions to Louisem@oafp.org with your comments.