Chair Appointed to New DEI Subcommittee
'I am so appreciative that our senior leadership has taken in feedback from the membership'
Leena Mittal, MD, FACLP, has been appointed chair of the new subcommittee on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
Leena Mittal, MD, FACLP
Dr. Mittal, Department of Psychiatry at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, says: “I have been part of the Academy since I was a C-L Psychiatry fellow at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 2009. The Academy has been an enormous part of my professional growth and development, and a place through which I have learned so much.
“As a growing organization, I am so appreciative that our senior leadership has taken in the feedback from the membership, especially from those who identify as being part of historically under-represented groups. I had the privilege of being part of the task force charged in the last year to develop a set of recommendations for the Academy. It was an exemplary working group with diverse participation which was able to make ambitious and far-reaching recommendations.
“Over the past few years, I have been working within my organizations and institutions to center and elevate the voices and needs of colleagues and patients from historically marginalized groups, and DEI work has become a passion of mine.
“We as an Academy are fortunate to have leadership such as Maria Tiamson- Kassab, MD, FACLP, willing to take the step of forming a subcommittee and truly leaning in to the work that the Academy has to do to make it an organization that is truly inclusive and a source of professional growth that ultimately benefits members and the patients we serve.”
ACLP president Dr.Tiamson-Kassab made Dr. Mittal’s appointment and has been personally driving progress on DEI—by working closely with the DEI task force to consider and implement recommendations, and by taking decisive action in founding the first DEI subcommittee within the ACLP.
Signalling the importance of this action, the appeal for volunteers to become subcommittee members was extremely popular and rapidly flooded with requests to join.
Dr. Mittal will select the subcommittee team together with Terry Rabinowitz, MD, DDS, FACLP, chair of the Academy’s Membership Committee, under which the subcommittee will operate.
Terry Rabinowitz, MD, DDS, FACLP
Volunteers for the subcommittee were asked to indicate:
- Their vision for DEI in the Academy.
- How they might contribute to the work on DEI in the Academy.
Details of the task force’s recommendations were in the Academy’s Newsletter here.