OHEDI Launches an Awards Program for Those Who Go ‘Above and Beyond’

Nominations are being accepted for a new Health Equity Leadership & Social Justice Award launched by the Office of Diversity, Inclusion and Health Equity (OHEDI). The award is designed to celebrate national heritage months by highlighting colleagues in healthcare whose work exemplifies excellence on behalf of people and groups who are underrepresented in medicine and/or disenfranchised in society.

“There are people in our institution who are doing things from the heart with the kind of passion that abounds here at Temple. Many times, those things and those people go unrecognized. This an opportunity for us to take note of and to celebrate the gifts that our faculty, trainees and staff are making daily to the communities that we serve,” Dr. Abiona Berkeley, MD, JD, FASA, Interim Senior Associate Dean of OHEDI,  said of the new awards program.

The inaugural award will be made in September in honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month. Faculty, staff, and trainees from across the Lewis Katz School of Medicine and Temple University Health System who are actively enrolled or are currently employed will be eligible.

Nominate a deserving colleague here

The deadline for nominations for the award during National Hispanic Heritage Month is September 7 at 11:59 p.m. The heritage month runs from September 15 through October 15 and awardees will be announced by the end of that period. Award recipients will receive a certificate and be profiled widely, including on the OHEDI section of the School's website, the OHEDI newsletter, Around Katz, and Temple News Digest.

In addition to exemplifying excellence in service to the Hispanic/Latinx communities, the following criteria are required:

• Employed at Lewis Katz School of Medicine/TUHS for at least one year
• Be in good standing (attendance and good performance evaluations)
• Exemplify Katz School of Medicine/TUHS core values
• Contribute to the healthcare field and/or their surrounding communities

Katz School of Medicine core values are teamwork, optimism, professionalism, and quality along with the six Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education core competencies that are deemed central to clinical excellence. The TUHS core values are respect, service, and quality.

The new awards program is expected to cast a light on the challenges facing underrepresented groups and to prompt others within the institution who are looking for ways they could help, Dr. Berkeley said.  “We’re hoping that as we create this award and present the accomplishments of those we’ve selected as awardees, that it gives others within the community the opportunity to think, ‘Maybe I could do something like that,’”

To showcase the efforts of many people and groups from across the institution, OHEDI will be partnering with several other offices, including Graduate Medical Education, Patient Experience and Faculty Affairs, to review nominations. “We’re into collaboration and we’re into progress,” Dr. Berkeley said.

“There are so many ways that we can give,” she said, “and to a large extent a lot of us who are working here at Temple already come with that passion and desire to serve. Most people who are here could be anywhere that they chose to be in the world. It is really the patients and the community that keep people here. We want to do our part in recognizing those who go above and beyond.”

For more information about the award program, contact OHEDI@temple.edu