To help increase a sense of belonging in the School of Medicine, the offices of Medical Education and Faculty Affairs are offering the Fostering Equity and Belonging (FEB) Challenge to Pitt Med faculty for the second year. It is a faculty education program that runs throughout February to help improve the learning environment of the School of Medicine.
Eloho Ufomata, an associate professor of medicine and assistant dean for equity and justice in the curriculum, developed the program last year, basing it on the United Way Race Equity Challenge held in 2020.
“Last year more than 200 faculty participated,” she said. “We did a pre- and post-survey, and people really learned.” The survey results were overwhelmingly positive.
Ufomata learned some things too, and used the survey feedback to tweak the program, reducing the number of learning modules from 15 to 12.
The homegrown challenge offers 12 learning activities that people can complete at their own pace on the Elentra learning platform. They include exercises that can help participants identify implicit biases.
In a video kicking off the program in its first year, Jason Rosenstock, associate dean for medical education, explained that the program benefits both educators and students.
“Being a medical educator means creating a cadre of future physicians who understand and will seek to redress health inequities in our society,” he said. “This challenge can help us do that.”
To keep things fun, “we gamified it a bit,” Ufomata said. The department with the highest level of participation wins a free lunch. Last year, the Department of Pediatrics was the winner.