Don't Say "DEI": Using an Ethics Perspective to Understand and Respond to State Antidiversity, Equity, and Inclusion laws. (AAAEM Equity and Inclusion and Ethics Committee Sponsored)
Current state laws such as Florida SB 266 (Stop W.O.K.E) and TX sb17 limit emergency physicians academic work on topics related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). These laws impact physicians who reside and work in those states at public institutions as well as at private institutions which receive state funding, and they may also impact these physicians' national academic interactions. We aim to analyze the ethical principles at stake which are used both to justify and to denounce these laws, including autonomy and privacy, beneficence and justice. Our panelists will discuss other forms of censorship and the arguments used to justify limitations on free speech. We will describe strategies that institutions and individuals have used to comply with these laws. Panelists will discuss the implications for continuing DEI work in states with laws limiting this work, as well as nationally in light of the ongoing political debate about the value of DEI efforts. We will ask whether these laws are more of nuisance, quietly circumvented with superficial changes in labels while continuing the work, or if they demand more significant resistance through advocacy and argument. Participants should expect to 1) Review the history of censorship and the ethical principles that support and limit it, 2) Apply these ethical principles to consider state laws that limit DEI work for Emergency Physicians, 3) Understand the potential impact locally and nationally from anti-DEI legislation, 4) Reflect on and begin developing a personal strategy to comply with these laws while continuing to support diversity, equity and inclusion work.
Presenters:
- Emily Spilseth Binstadt, MD MPH
- Cindy C. Bitter, MD, MA, MPH
- Kevin McGurk, MD
- Edgardo Ordonez, MD, MPH
- Nancy S. Onisko, DO
- Dina Wallin, MD
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Emily Spilseth Binstadt, MD, MPH
Regions/Health Partners
Dr Binstadt is passionate about exploring the best ways to teach residents and faculty and provide high-quality emergency care to patients. She is interested in issues of justice, equity, inclusion, and belonging, medical education using simulation, procedural skills training, experiences of women in medicine, wilderness medicine, and ethics. She also enjoys maximizing her time spent outside in natural environments, traveling, and with her family.
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Cindy C. Bitter, MD, MA, MPH
Saint Louis University School of Medicine
Dr. Cindy Bitter is an associate professor in Emergency Medicine at Saint Louis University (SLU) School of Medicine. She serves as the Wellness co-Champion for SLU EM Residency and is a member of the interdisciplinary wellness taskforce for the SSM-Saint Louis University Hospital. Trained in International EM and Global Health at the University of Illinois Chicago, Dr. Bitter has published on post-traumatic stress disorder in EM. She is an active member of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM) Wellness Committee and has done work on moral injury and faculty vitality during the COVID19 pandemic. Dr. Bitter is passionate about ensuring EM practitioners around the world have the knowledge they need to save lives, while also empowering them with the tools needed for them to thrive throughout their career in medicine. Dr. Bitter completed medical school at the University of Kansas and a year of Internal Medicine at Northwestern University prior to finishing her EM training at the Medical College of Wisconsin. She also completed a Masters in Bioethics from MCW.
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Kevin McGurk, MD
Assistant Professor
Medical College of Wisconsin
Dr. McGurk is an assistant professor in the emergency medicine department at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Prior to pursuing medicine, he worked as an elementary school teacher in the D.C. public school system. He received his medical degree from the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine and completed his residency at Cook County Health, where he also served as chief resident. Dr. McGurk's professional interests include medical education, retrospective research, and medical humanities. He is the M3 EM clerkship director and the 2023 recipient of the Joseph C. Carin Excellence in Teaching Award. -
Edgardo Ordonez, MD, MPH
Baylor College of Medicine
Dr. Ordoñez is an Associate Professor of Emergency and Internal Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine (BCM). He received his medical and public health degrees from Rutgers-New Jersey Medical School and School of Public Health. He completed a combined emergency and internal medicine residency at Christiana Care in Newark, Delaware. Dr. Ordoñez has been an Inclusion and Equity Ambassador at BCM since 2016. His advanced training includes being a Center of Excellence in Health Equity, Research, and Training Junior Faculty Scholar from 2019-2020 and a fellow in the inaugural Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) DEI Leadership Fellowship in 2022. He was also a participant in the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Leadership for Health Equity Program. He is the Director of Health Equity and Community Engagement for the Henry JN Taub Department of Emergency Medicine and the Health Equity Curriculum Thread Director for BCM’s School of Medicine. Nationally, he serves as Immediate Past President of the Society of Academic Emergency Medicine’s (SAEM) Academy for Diversity and Inclusion in Emergency Medicine, the SAEM Equity & Inclusion Committee, the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee, and the Council of Residency Director’s in Emergency Medicine (CORD) Diversity and Inclusion Committee. His interests include workforce diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, healthcare delivery, health equity, social determinants of health, and mentorship.
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Nancy S. Onisko, DO
UT Southwestern
Nancy Onisko, D.O., FACEP, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at UT Southwestern. She is also the co-director of the Perinatal Intervention Program at Parkland Hospital and Health System. Her areas of interest include addiction medicine, general toxicology, toxinology (the study of venomous animals and poisonous plants), new drugs of abuse as well as DEI and Social Emergency Medicine.
Dr. Onisko earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology from Michigan State University. After college, she spent five years working as a Clinical Research Associate at the University of California at San Diego before pursuing her dream of becoming a physician. She graduated from Midwestern University, Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine in Phoenix, Ariz., in 2003. She then completed her internship at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton, Calif., in 2004 and her residency in Emergency Medicine at Wayne State University and Detroit Receiving Hospital in Detroit, Mich., in 2007.
Dr. Onisko is board certified in Emergency Medicine and Addiction Medicine and spent five years practicing community-based emergency medicine in California before returning to academia to pursue a fellowship in toxicology. She enjoyed the cerebral atmosphere of academia so much that she then completed a second fellowship in Global Health and Disaster Medicine and stayed on as an attending physician and Clinical Professor of Emergency Medicine at UTSW. Her passions outside of medicine include international travel, tennis, music, photography, social justice issues, and animal rescue. -
Dina Wallin, MD
University of California, San Francisco
Dr. Dina Wallin is an associate clinical professor of emergency medicine and pediatric emergency medicine at UCSF-San Francisco General Hospital, where she is the Director of Didactics for the EM residency. Her interest in bioethics began during her undergraduate studies at Stanford University, and she continued to participate in the field throughout residency and fellowship. Currently, she sits on the UCSF Medical Ethics Committee, the Benioff Children's Hospital Pediatric Bioethics interest group, and the SAEM and ACEP Ethics Committees.