Overview and programme

To mark Black History Month, join us this October for a conversation with Dame Elizabeth Anionwu on how best we as pathologists can work to address and reduce health inequalities and identify ways to action pathology as a driver to improved health for all.

The Royal College of Pathologists (RCPath) is a founder member of the Inequalities in Health Alliance which launched in October 2020 to press for urgent action to address health inequalities.  The RCPath with nearly 80 other organisations is demanding a cross-government strategy to reduce health inequalities.  As part of this process, the College recognised that its own representation at senior levels did not reflect the diversity of its members.  The College therefore established a Diversity Network to make recommendations to the College about how it can encourage and enable more people of all identities and backgrounds to become involved in the College.   This Black History Month event to which you are invited has been organised by the Diversity Network.

Programme

18.30 Introductions
18.40 QA session between Dame Elizabeth, Dr Samar Betmouni and Dr Subarna Chakravorty to start a conversation about how pathology/pathologists can reduce health inequalities

  • People (our patients and their families/carers) – equity of access to health services, including discussion of identity and intersectionality to understand why/how/when people access service.
  • Widening participation  - increasing recruitment and making diversity visible in pathology: starting at school with widening participation to entry into medicine and then continuing to provide the appropriate support at post-graduate level to ensure diverse representation at senior and leadership positions in the profession.
  • Education – of health service users and professionals
  • Activism – we will talk about Dame Elizabeth's motivation to work on sickle cell disease and to improve services available to people
  • Individual stories – this is an extension of “activism” and will start a discussion about how our individual stories can be used to drive our objectives to reduce health inequalities.

19.10 QA session open to the audience
19.50 Summing up and close 

This event is free and will be hosted via Zoom.