Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

Mentoring and Diversity

Mitchell D. Feldman, MD, MPhil

Associate Vice Provost, Academic Affairs

Professor of Medicine

Renee Navarro, MD, PharmD

Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Outreach

Michael Adams

Director, Office of Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity and Diversity

Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

Preview

1. Overview of diversity issues at UCSF Renee Navarro

2. Unconscious Bias Implicit Association Test Reflection on Difference

3. Vignettes

Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

What is unconscious bias?

• Unconscious bias refers to social stereotypes about certain demographics or groups of people that individuals form outside of their own conscious awareness.

Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

Unconsious Bias

• Trix and Psenka (2003) analyzed letters of rec for medical school faculty– Letters for women were shorter, more likely to contain gender

terms (“intelligent young lady”), more likely to contain ‘doubt raisers’

• Golden and Rouse (2000) found that blinded auditions let to sig increase in women hired in orchestras

• Bertand and Mullainathan (2003) examined impact of race on job call-backs– Resumes with white names (eg “Greg”) had a 50% greater

chance of receiving a call-back than did resumes with traditionally AA names (eg “Lakisha”)

Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

“Unconscious Bias”• Homework Assignment: Take one of the Implicit

Association Tests (IAT) which can accessed at http://implicit.harvard.edu (go to Demonstration tests). There are a number of tests to choose from but we would recommend one of the following: Race; Gender-Science; Gender-Career; Sexuality

• You should plan on about 30 minutes for this exercise• After you have taken the test--write down your reactions.• What did you learn about your own unconscious bias? How

do you think this could impact on your relationships with colleagues generally, and specifically on your work with mentees?

Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

Trigger Vignettes

Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

“Playing the race card . . .”My Latino mentee, who just recently was appointed to Assistant Adjunct Faculty, submitted a K01 training grant that was unscored. The main reason given was that it was unclear how the training would be different from what he has been doing as a postdoctoral researcher on my own research projects. He has responded to all critiques. The research he is involved in affects minorities disproportionately and it is his stated desire to serve the underrepresented in his research effort. However, he does not want to "play the race card" in his grant application and explicitly state that he is a Latino. I believe that that is a mistake in today's funding situation. While I understand his pride ("I don't want special treatment"), I also want him to succeed as the unique person he is at UCSF and in his type of research.

• How can I best encourage him to use his ethnicity not as a trump card to get favorite treatment, but as a strength to his research?

• And should I in fact try to do so or not?

Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

Asking for personal information• A fellow (or post-doc) from Japan has just joined

your research team. As his research mentor, you have met several times to discuss his professional goals and career objectives, potential research projects, sources of funding, and general timelines for their professional life, but you realize that you know very little about his personal goals and objectives and general timelines for his personal life.

• Should you ask about this "personal" information? Why or why not?

Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

Generational Values• Dr X is a 32 year old Assistant Professor who joined the faculty five

years ago. When first hired, he had negotiated to work 80% time in order to spend more time at home with his young child but had planned to increase to 100% in a few years to pursue the research he had started during fellowship. Lately, however, he is feeling increasing ‘work-life conflict’ and is thinking of cutting back to 70% to have more time to coach his son's soccer team and pursue his black belt in Aikido. He has not raised these issues with his mentor, a 55 year old Professor, whom he senses is growing frustrated with him.

• What is the role of the mentoring relationship in promoting work-life balance? What are the responsibilities of the mentor and mentee to insure that work-life balance is addressed? How are work and life expectations identified, and can they both be met? To what extent are the differing value systems of Dr. X and his mentor a factor in their relationship?

Copyright © Mitchell D Feldman, MD, MPhil.

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