The seventh annual Trainee Diversity and Inclusion Conference was held on Feb. 22, 2025, featuring keynote speaker Jaya Aysola, MD, MPH, an associate professor of medicine and pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania. The theme of the conference was to empower attendees to better serve an increasingly diverse patient population and to share insights from working with health systems to operationalize equity for marginalized populations.
Dr. Aysola presented an insightful talk on cultural humility and its transformative role in healthcare. As the founding executive director of Penn Medicine’s Center for Health Equity and Advancement, Dr. Aysola’s research focuses on improving healthcare outcomes for marginalized populations. In her talk, Dr. Aysola made a key distinction between cultural competency and cultural humility, emphasizing the need for healthcare to move beyond competency, which often relies on memorizing cultural stereotypes. Instead, cultural humility involves a commitment to self-awareness, introspection, and co-learning, acknowledging that we cannot fully understand the experiences of others. This approach encourages healthcare providers to learn from their patients, rather than assuming they already know what’s best based on cultural trends or knowledge acquired in medical school.
Surgery resident Chioma Moneme, MD, (center) receives the 2025 Mark Anthony Fleming, II Award.
At the conference, Chioma Moneme, MD, a surgery resident, was awarded the 2025 Mark Anthony Fleming, II Award for Advocacy and Advancement of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Graduate Medical Education. This award was established in 2024 by the GME office and the Housestaff Council for Diversity and Inclusion to recognize extraordinary trainee leadership in diversity advancement and advocacy.
In addition to the keynote, the conference included several engaging panels about cultural humility in the Latino community and learning from the past to inform the future. The discussions were led by the UVA Housestaff Council for Diversity and Inclusion and key members of our local community.
Practical Efforts to Promote Cultural Humility with a Focus on the Latino Community
Max Luna, MD, from the Latino Health Initiative at the University of Virginia (UVA), discussed several impactful programs he’s leading that are designed to improve healthcare access and outcomes for the Latino community. Initiatives like Tardes de Salud, a health education series for the Latinx community, and the La Clínica Gratuita at the Charlottesville Free Clinic focus on increasing engagement and addressing specific health needs. Through these programs, Dr. Luna and his team have successfully increased COVID-19 vaccination rates by 10% in 2023 by fostering trust and community engagement through focus groups.
Erik Scott, MD, a cardiac surgeon, has implemented the Perioperative Spanish Language Initiative to address the lack of Spanish-speaking support in the operating room. This initiative provides residents with basic medical Spanish relevant to the operating room, enhancing communication and improving patient satisfaction. Supported by NIH-endorsed programs like Canopy Learn, this effort helps ensure that Spanish-speaking patients receive more personalized and culturally competent care.
Daniel Beiler, CMI, a medical interpreter, discussed key barriers in healthcare for Latino patients, such as linguistic and cultural gaps. He emphasized the importance of slowing down during consultations, avoiding assumptions, and asking open-ended questions to ensure patients’ needs are understood and effectively addressed. UVA is unique in that we have numerous interpreting services available and providers are encouraged to use them.
Learning from the Past and Moving Forward
Meggan Cashwell, PhD, curator of Historical Collections at UVA Health Sciences Library, covered the history of healthcare at the University of Virginia and the racial inequalities in the institution’s past. She discussed troubling practices like the use of enslaved labor to build UVA and the stealing of bodies from Black cemeteries for anatomy labs in the late 1800s. Understanding this history is crucial, as the legacy of this history still lives on today. Facing this history is difficult, but doing so is how we can move forward. Dr. Cashwell encouraged healthcare providers to explore UVA’s excellent archival records to better understand the university’s relationship with surrounding communities.
Sly Mata, director of Diversity Education at UVA, emphasized the importance of addressing patients’ holistic needs, particularly for those facing health disparities. He encouraged potential applicants and current staff to “be your authentic sense of self” as “who you are, your culture is valuable in this space.” He acknowledged that sometimes we need to do better interfacing with individuals with unfamiliar experiences from our own and reminded us that the population we serve at UVA is also broad and heterogeneous.
Bonnie Morton, PhD, Marjan Omranian, MEd, and Mansi Trivedi, MD, shared their work with Cville Tulips, a program dedicated to supporting young refugee women from Afghanistan, Syria, and other countries as they navigate the U.S. healthcare system. Through the program, they work closely with these women to address barriers to care, such as language differences, cultural misunderstandings, and healthcare system navigation.
Photos by Coe Sweet.
Filed Under: Community, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion