Our Commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion
Our Commitment to Justice, Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion
The mission and values of our residency is actively practiced in all aspects of our program. Our residents are heavily involved in advocating for JEDI in our health system and in the larger community. As you read through our site, you’ll see this in the spirit and practice of our residents. Here is some of the work we are proud to highlight!
Primary care residents are key leaders in campus wide advocacy groups.
- Diana Lopez (Class of 2024), Co-Chair of MHO
- The UCLA Minority Housestaff Organization (MHO) is a housestaff-driven organization dedicated to the mission of excellence through diversity. The organization aims to recruit, develop and advance physicians from historically under-represented racial and ethnic groups in medicine as well as advocate for the communities who helped produce us.
- Kelly Cheung (Class of 2025), Current Co-President of IM REDI
- Daniel Gonzales (Class of 2024), Past Co-President of IM REDI
- The UCLA Internal Medicine Resident Equity, Diversity & Inclusion Committee (IM REDI) is a group of residents, faculty, and staff that aims to advance equitable health outcomes for patients, inclusive curricular innovation for residents, diversity in the physician workforce, mentorship within our field, and outreach into our greater community of Los Angeles County.
- Cameron Hines, Jessica Osorio, Ruth Miranda, and Kevin Truong also served on the IM REDI board. The faculty advisor, Liz Asfaw, is a graduate of our Primary Care Residency Program.
- Vi Nguyen & Nathan Mclaughlin (Class of 2025), Co-Chairs of Spectrum Alliance
- Phillip Chen (Class of 2023), Past Co-Chair of Spectrum Alliance
- Many of our primary care residents are a part of this expanding multi-specialty LGBTQIA+ identity group. Spectrum is a resident-led initiative, supported by the Resident Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion committee. Spectrum advocates for LGBTQIA+ health disparities and enrich our residency curriculum with LGBTQIA+ health topics.
Primary care residents participate in research projects focused on addressing health disparities.
- Daniel Gonzales, Daniel Stokes, Kevin Truong (Class of 2024): Frontline perspectives on ambulatory clinical access challenges for patients insured with California Medicaid; In collaboration with National Clinical Scholars Program Fellows, conducted qualitative interviews and thematic analyses with clinicians and administrative staff highlighting challenges with delays in patient care relating to restrictive policies or administrative issues by Medicaid at inpatient discharge and outpatient clinic visits. Minority Housestaff Organization (MHO) Health Equity Grant Recipient 2021-2022
- Nikko Gonzales (Class of 2023): Assessing perceptions and understanding of colon cancer screening among racial and ethnic minorities experiencing housing insecurity in Los Angeles County. The project aims to assess the perceptions of colon cancer screening among racial/ethnic minorities who are accessing medical care in non-traditional, community based clinic spaces in Los Angeles County. Minority Housestaff Organization (MHO) Health Equity Grant Recipient 2021-2022.
- Kelly Cheung, Josh Jiang (Class of 2025): Improving treatment of obesity and utilization in predominantly Latinx community at Olive View. Primary Care QI Project 2022-2023.
- Kelly Cheung (Class of 2025): Empowering primary care resident physicians to address SDoH through community medicine visits & EMR tools (dot phrases, patient instructions). Primary Care QI Project 2022-2023.
Spotlight: Dr. Lovelee Brown
Dr. Brown is a primary care physician at the Venice Family Clinic, a local FQHC in Los Angeles, and proud graduate of the UCLA Primary Care track. As a graduate of the inaugural Olive View-Santa Clarita class and former primary care chief resident, she translated her passion for serving in the safety net to her current cinical practice and academically as the assistant Designated Institutional Office for Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion for UCLA's office of Graduate Medical Education. Through her work within the Graduate Medical Education space, she helps to promote health equity for all patients, diversity within our physician community, and inclusion of thought and background in our learning space to train the next generation of physician advocates and leaders. She has led several recruitment initiatives including the Road to Residency conference at UCLA, Pathways to Practice (a career development conference), and founded UCLA's Minority Housestaff Organization.
Our primary care faculty and alumni are leaders in JEDI.
- Dr. Arash Nafisi and Dr. Sural Shah: Leads of Olive-View’s Human Rights Clinic
- Dr. Brianna Cowan: Medical Director for the HPACT (homeless
- Dr. Hijab Zubairi: Health Equity & Advocacy Pathway Director
- Dr. Lovelee Brown: Designated Institutional Official (DIO) Associate Dean for Graduate Medical Education, MHO founder
- Dr. Elizabeth Asfaw: IM REDI Faculty Advisor
UCLA is a leader in Heath Services Research.
Many of our Health Services Research faculty live out their activism through their work in health equity and health disparities. Our research and clinical faculty are intentionally paired with residents by area of interest and serve as mentors throughout residency. Our clinical faculty also love working with our housestaff and are always available to provide formal and informal mentoring throughout. This close tie between mentorship, scholarship, and advocacy provides our residents with unique tools to be future physician leaders and advocates for their patients. We equip our residents to interface with health systems and health policy through the capstone Primary Care Medicine block focused on advocacy.
