Denise Pines, president of the Medical Board of California, speaks as part of our cultural competency curriculum.

We’re are holding a town hall on Tuesday morning to check in with faculty with young and school-age children to see how you are holding up – and how we can help support you?  We recognize that the COVID pandemic has disrupted your normal support system for educating and caring for your family and causing significant stress without a clear end in sight.  Dr. Tait Shanefelt will join us to listen in and give guidance, as he is completing a needs assessment survey of the faculty. Dr, Brooke Gurland – our new department wellness director looks forward to understanding your specific challenges.

Some topics we thought would be good for discussion with Dr. Brooke Gurland and Dr. Tait Shanefelt:

1. Are you exposing your family to risk by being a healthcare worker?  Dr, Bonnie Maldonado will share her results from her family transmission study as well as concerns for COVID with pregnant moms.
2. How you can access sabbatical and professional development leave to reduce clinical effort – Libby/Rose (Academic Affairs)
3. How different families are responding to the distance learning and childcare challenge – are you hiring in-home help?   (Everyone)
4. Best practices for hiring in-home help – reference checks/background checks (Yvette Caro – HR director for the department)
5. Creating ‘pods’ of shared child care/educational tutors with other families to limit COVID exposure (everyone)
6. Finding a quiet place to get your work done with everyone at home (Everyone)
7. Strategies for self-care – with all the increased demands (Everyone – with Brooke and Tait sharing resources)
8. What to do if you or a family member is exposed or gets COVID? (Mary)

Leslie Chin, MBA from Stanford’s Graduate School of Business is coming to discuss responding to being called out for bias. This will be the fifth and final course in the Department’s inaugural cultural competency lecture series.

Drs. Andra Blomkins and Mary Hawn are female leaders in a male-dominated profession. Tune in for an informal conversation between these two Stanford Medicine Department Chairs in honor of Women in Medicine Month. Register here.