Committee Statement on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)
The Surgical Critical Care Program Directors Society (SCCPDS) endorses diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) principles and practices among its members and the fellowship programs that they represent. The 2020 statistics published by the U.S. census bureau showed a continued trend of racial and ethnic diversity among the USA population. Unfortunately, this diversity is not reflected in healthcare, where underrepresented minorities account for less than 10% of the total physician workforce. At SCCPDS, we believe it is pivotal for us, as an educational organization, to actively work to increase diversity and inclusion among our membership and surgical critical care (SCC) fellowship programs to provide better care for the increasingly diverse population that we serve.
Increasing diversity among SCC specialists will improve the educational experiences of our members, and will make our care teams more effective and better equipped to address the specific needs of the diverse patient populations that we provide care for. Embracing an open culture of inclusion within our membership and SCC fellowship programs will improve productivity, reduce burnout, and provide healthy environments that celebrate individual experiences, innovative thinking, and problem-solving skills to evolve the practice of medicine.
The establishment of the Diversity Committee at SCCPDS reflects an active step that demonstrates the organization’s commitment to DEI. The committee works to identify relevant resources on DEI to educate our members; to share best practices to adopt during recruitment processes to help increase diversity and inclusion among SCCPDS membership and in SCC fellowships; and to highlight issues related to equity of care including accessing critical care services among the diverse populations of surgical patients.