Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility

The faculty of the BU Genetic Counseling Program recognize and celebrate differences in ethnicity, race, gender identity, disability status, religion, sexuality, immigration status and socioeconomic backgrounds in our learning community. As we provide care and train learners at Boston Medical Center, an institution serving historically marginalized patients and clients, we work to integrate issues related to diversity, inclusion, justice and equity throughout all aspects of our curriculum. We are devoted to developing faculty’s and students’ roles as advocates for our colleagues and patients, and uplifting the voices of those who have been disempowered by the medical system.

As an educator, my goal is to create more equitable and inclusive genetic counseling training spaces. This commitment was fueled by my dissertation, which focused on the training experiences of genetic counseling students who identify with a racial or ethnic minority group. Within the BU genetic counseling program, I’m working with the other faculty to implement the recommendations from my prior research. One aspect of this work is to establish a mentorship program between students and practicing genetic counselors; when students have an identity that has been structurally marginalized, the goal is to find a mentor who shares this identity. On a profession-wide level, I lead workshops for genetic counselors about how to provide culturally-responsive supervision. Looking forward, I am launching a new longitudinal research project with my colleagues looking at how identity, particularly identities that have been structurally marginalized, impact the experience of genetic counseling training. I anticipate that this research will inform efforts to create equitable and inclusive spaces within genetic counseling programs and the ways that we train supervisors who interact with students.

• List
• Timeline Graph
• Timeline Data