MGH McLean
The MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Training Program is committed to diversity, inclusion, and equity.
The mission of the residency program is to nurture a diverse physician workforce that will promote health and social equity in our local communities and beyond. We foster a diverse, inclusive environment in which everyone feels valued, engaged, and connected, so that we can all excel to our fullest capacity. We prioritize diversity in every aspect of our training program: leadership, mentorship and career development, clinical experiences, research opportunities, and didactic learning.
Each member of our program director team is personally committed to prioritizing diversity, equity inclusion, and belonging in our educational curriculum and learning community.
As a Cuban-American from Miami, I was inspired to work with Latinx populations as a resident at MGH during by community psychiatry rotation in Chelsea. I am excited to help build the pipeline of diverse physician leaders and advocates who reflect the communities we serve.
As an Ethiopian-European-American who has lived on three different continents, I firmly believe that diversity fosters innovation, compassion and excellence in health care and our society at large. By fostering an environment that celebrates our differences, we can dismantle systemic barriers and cultivate a richer tapestry of healthcare providers who mirror our communities and better serve the needs of our patients.”
Our residency program is integrated with a vast array of department, hospital, and medical school resources that are dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Through close collaboration and resident participation in these centers of excellence, we ensure best practices and provide rich learning opportunities.
“I want our department to be a place where BIPOC providers, researchers, and patients see themselves reflected.”
– Olivia Okereke, MD MS, Director
“Guided by the inherent dignity and integrity of every human being, our mission is to promote an inclusive mental healthcare community, enrich professional development, and deliver compassionate and culturally humble care.”
– Nhi-Ha Trinh, MD, MPH, Director
“I envision employees across all of our mission elements – clinical, research, and training, wherever they sit within our organization – see themselves within these efforts and have a growing understanding of what their contributions can be.”
– Stephanie Pinder-Amaker, PhD, Chief Officer
“Diversity focuses on who we are and the unique differences each of us brings, while inclusion aims to create an environment where everyone is respected and valued. Now is the time for medicine to advance a genuine commitment to both.”
– Elena Olson, JD, Executive Director
MGB Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
At Mass General Brigham, diversity, equity, and inclusion are central to every aspect of our organization. When our workforce is more equitable and inclusive, we can be more innovative, creative, and on the cutting edge of advancement. Leveraging diverse perspectives allows us to develop better overall solutions to the problems we face.
Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Partnership
Our mission is to is to advance diversity inclusion in health, biomedical, behavioral, and STEM fields that builds individual and institutional capacity to achieve excellence, foster innovation, and ensure equity in health locally, nationally, and globally.
Led by the MGH Department of Psychiatry Center for Diversity, Equity, and Belonging
These roleplay-based workshops, developed by a prior MGH/McLean resident, help train faculty, staff, and residents how to recognize and respond to instances of explicit or implicit bias in real time.
Led by the MGH Center for Diversity and Inclusion
This inter-departmental forum for underrepresented in medicine trainees at MGH assists with residency recruitment, offers opportunities to socialize and network with peers, and enhances career development with engagement in the broader Harvard and Boston communities.
Led by the MGB Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
This multifaceted, far-reaching initiative focuses on dismantling racism by increasing diversity across institutional leadership and provider workforce; addressing structural racism that results in racial inequities in patient care; taking responsibility for community outcomes; and engaging in community advocacy.
Led by the Harvard Medical School Office for Diversity, Inclusion, and Community Partnership
Better Together is a multi-pronged initiative that aims to make Harvard Medical School the institution of preference for underrepresented, historically marginalized individuals such as women and those unrepresented in medicine, who identify as LGBTQ+, and who have disabilities. It seeks to become a leader in diversity and inclusion, especially at levels of leadership; to build community and belonging via the physical environment and programming; and to be held accountable through tracking and reporting of diversity outcomes.
The Psychiatry UIM Mentorship Program pairs UIM residents with UIM faculty mentors. Residents meet with faculty monthly or as frequently as desired. Faculty mentors attend a series of workshops on mentoring, especially as it applies to diverse residents.
Intern orientation events include a special welcoming event with residents (a Duck Tour of Boston or resident barbeque) and a dinner with UIM faculty mentors.
Resident affinity groups for BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and First-Generation/Socially Disadvantaged Residents further promote belonging and provide additional opportunities for networking, socialization, and friendships.
The MGH Center for Diversity and Inclusion’s Resident and Fellow Committee offers monthly networking opportunities and quarterly workshops and seminars on career and leadership development. Residents have many opportunities to mentor medical students and peers and to engage in community service in the greater Boston community, such as through health fairs and mentorship of high school students.
American Psychiatric Association Fellowship Awards provide selected residents with experiential learning, training, and professional development for becoming leaders in psychiatry. Among possible awards are those focused on diversity leadership, community diversity, and public psychiatry. Each year, the program successfully nominates several residents for these national awards.
The MGH Center for Diversity and Inclusion Faculty Development Awards provide funding for newly recruited faculty to support clinical, research, and community projects. Recent awardees include Nkechi Conteh, MD, who developed our UIM Mentorship Program in her role as Associate Program Director for our residency, and Linda Herrera Santos, MD, who initiated the Hispanic Psychiatry Clinic.
Our departments are highly committed to retention of UIM residents as faculty. In 2023, two of our graduating residents, Richard Bido Medina, MD PhD, and Desta Lissanu, MD stayed on as faculty.
The Harvard Medical School Office Division for Diversity Inclusion and Community Partnership (DICP) sponsors a Visiting Clerkship Program for UIM medical students. Students gain clinical experience, have multiple opportunities for networking, and learn about training programs in the Harvard system.
The MGH Hispanic Psychiatry Resident Clinic was created to improve access to high quality mental health care for Spanish-speaking patients and to promote the professional education of Hispanic residents and trainees. The clinic provides psychopharmacology and psychotherapy in Spanish for referred patients, and hosts monthly educational activities related to caring for diverse patients.
The Division of Public and Community Psychiatry focuses on providing clinical care to underserved and vulnerable populations, as well as engaging in robust residency training and community-engaged research. The Division is grounded in its commitment to social justice and to addressing mental health inequities. Residents have many opportunities to gain experience in public and community psychiatry through both scheduled and elective rotations. Residents rotate through community-based continuity clinics, a specialty mental health clinic for serious mental illness, a homeless shelter, and a correctional facility. Several community-based clinics provide tailored care for special populations, including veterans, LGBTQIA+, and transitional age youth.
A concentration in global psychiatry allows residents who are interested in global mental health to learn about service delivery, capacity building, education, research, and leadership, both locally and internationally. Interested residents are provided with additional mentorship and didactics in global psychiatry, as well as opportunities to engage in global projects. In the fourth year, residents can chose to rotate to international sites, including but not limited to Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Peru, and Lebanon.
The MGH Mongan Institute’s Disparities Research Unit conducts research to improve health care service delivery to diverse populations. Close collaborations with multidisciplinary teams of researchers and mentors at the Mongan Instituteallow residents to contribute to ongoing research and to develop proposals for new areas of study.
The Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Research Collaboration expands resident opportunities to engage with a community of diverse scholars. Residents participate in a shared virtual curriculum with researchers and trainees from HBCUs and have access to additional mentors and research projects.
The Summer UIM Research Program sponsors medical students who are from groups UIM to conduct mentored research at MGH, McLean, and Harvard Medical School. Students work closely with research mentors, engage in weekly discussion on scholarly topics, and gain research and presentation skills. Students also have opportunities for networking and for shadowing faculty and residents on clinical services.
The Residency Advocacy Committee is a group dedicated to challenging systemic disparities in our hospital and communities by promoting activism and service. Residents participate in projects that range from advocacy at the local and national levels for policies that promote mental health, to volunteering at local community-based organizations that serve vulnerable populations.
Each year, residents will examine and interact with issues at the intersection of society, culture, and identity. These didactics build on one another conceptually, so that residents can experience the intricacies of these issues while feeling empowered to collaborate in making a more just and equitable community.
Across their four years of training, residents will participate in didactics that explore the following topics:
Sessions in this category establish and reinforce the importance of the multifaceted narratives and interwoven histories that influence illness and wellness while striving to achieve the best possible healthcare outcomes. Residents will discuss concepts including culture as a multidimensional construct, culture and bias within the hospital, individual and cultural identities, global psychiatric epidemiology, spirituality, DSM cultural formulation, and many other topics. Residents are given the opportunity to address bias at the bedside in the hospital through interactive demonstrations and didactics and are also invited to participate in case-based cultural learning.
In these sessions, residents will be exposed to topics that address the interplay between communities in the creation of a larger society. Presentations on social determinants of psychiatric illness, ethics, structural competency, community prevention, the history of mistakes and paradigm shifts in psychiatry, US mental healthcare, justice, minority stress and intersectionality, trauma in marginalized populations, community mental health models, and advocacy, among others, are covered.
Residents explore how issues surrounding identity affect the therapeutic relationship and the administration of healthcare in lectures from this series. They will build on understanding and confronting privilege, recovery and risk, overidentification in the psychiatric encounter, lived experience, and topics of sexual and gender identity.
The sociocultural content team that develops and modifies these didactics is comprised of both faculty and residents, thereby enabling rapid identification and implementation of changes and updates in response to evolving resident and community interests and needs. Residents are appreciative of both the concrete topic content presented through lectures as well as the opportunity to engage in exploratory conversations during these seminars.
Further, residents will have access to the Grand Rounds series at Mass General Brigham hospitals. Recent sociocultural topics have included addressing mental health disparities, facilitating inclusive multicultural therapy groups, gender differences in substance use treatment, achieving population health through a Learning Health Community, and many others.
