UTMB vascular surgeon Christine Shokrzadeh, MD, recently received a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion grant from the Eastern Vascular Society to study family planning in surgical trainees and young faculty. We look forward to learning more about her important
work.
From Dr. Shokrzadeh:
Family planning was not a topic often discussed in residency. I would like to use the grant to survey vascular surgery training programs throughout the country about family planning education on both the program director level and the trainee
level. Part of my goal would be to understand how training programs can improve support for trainees or even young vascular faculty on family planning including topics such as pregnancy during training or early career, family leave, access
to information on IVF, childcare etc. I hope to analyze the information gathered from the survey and make a change in how we perceive family planning in vascular surgery training. Furthermore, since our vascular training programs are often
small, our trainees do not always have mentors within their programs who they can turn to with family planning questions. With the grant, I would like to jump start a program where vascular trainees and/or young surgeons can have a forum where
they can discuss these topics. The forum will create a safe and protected environment for trainees to talk about and ask questions about family planning. I would also like to use the grant to create seminars or educational sessions on family
planning using virtual platforms. The ultimate goal of this project is to improve our trainees and young vascular surgeons’ understanding of family planning and decrease the stigma surrounding this important but often neglected topic.
Additionally, I would like to use the grant to attend regional and national meetings that have emphasis on DEI issues in vascular surgery, for example the EVS annual meeting, VESS, and VAM. I would like the opportunity to interact with DEI chair/vice
chair in surgery departments throughout the country to learn how they have educated their departments on DEI issues and have improved on them. I hope this will create opportunities for partnership between different surgery departments and
improve our understanding of DEI issues in vascular surgery.
Congratulations, Dr. Shokrzadeh!