Our residents are encouraged to raise their concerns and their visions for future program improvement. One result is the creation of resident-led task forces that are empowered by the Residency Education Committee.

Committees Supporting Diversity for Residents

Resident Initiative for Solidarity and Engagement (RISE) Together Committee

The RISE Together Committee is a resident-developed and resident-led group that was created to address issues of diversity and inclusion in our residency program with the goal of moving from a mindset of diversity as an independent goal to a mindset of diversity as a path to excellence in our program through the implementation of four initiatives: recruitment, creating a safe place to train, patient care, and resident education. Our goals are to raise awareness in faculty, staff, and residents about issues pertaining to racism, create a safe place to train, increase recruitment efforts of underrepresented minority residents, and teach faculty, residents, and staff about issues pertaining to race in patient care settings. We work to assess all aspects of residency training with subcommittees that focus on these topics: residency education/curriculum development, advocacy/community outreach, resident experience, patient experience, and resident recruitment. The RISE Together Committee operates under the residency education committee and receives substantial support from program leadership. Through the committee, initiatives have been developed such as the following:

• "Celebrate Diversity Day" dedicated to showcasing our residency program diversity
• Special education seminars at the African American Museum and Latino Cultural Center
• Lectures on microaggressions and discrimination as a social determinant of mental health

We have expanded already existing lectures on how to incorporate topics of race and culture when providing care to our diverse patient population and invited several Grand Rounds speakers to deliver lectures pertaining to race and diversity. The task force has also created new seminar content, including two special seminar days focused on African American and Latino mental health, held at the Dallas African American Museum and the Dallas Latino Cultural Center. The residency program has restructured didactics to include a full Cultural Psychiatry & Antiracism Curriculum and has developed and implemented an antiracism workshop, "Racism: A Black Mental Health Crisis," which is embedded within the Psychiatry Clerkship that includes participation from trainees, faculty, and staff.

We recently obtained a book fund to create a cultural library for our residents and to provide each resident with a copy of the Clinical Manual of Cultural Psychiatry.

LGBTQI+ Inclusion Committee

The LGBTQI+ Inclusion Committee was created by residents to enhance awareness of the unique mental health risks and psychiatric needs of LGBTQI+ individuals via four realms: didactics, patient care, mentorship, and resident recruitment. Sample activities:

• LGBTQI+ mental health seminar
• Therapy group for LGBTQI+ individuals in the Parkland outpatient psychiatry clinic
• Advocated for patient registration template changes in the electronic medical record
• Campus-wide mentoring group for residents and fellows
• Resident and medical student educational activities for improving LGBTQI+ health knowledge

University-Wide Graduate Medical Education Committees Supporting Diversity

Wellness Committee

The Wellness Committee aims to create a structure of support and interconnectedness between residents in the psychiatry program. We strive to promote wellness by planning and coordinating a variety of resident events, creating an avenue for advocacy with program leadership, and assisting residents with low-cost psychotherapy options. Many of the committee’s previous events and projects have fallen under the following categories: general socializing, mindfulness, fitness, nutrition, and parental support. To help achieve our goals, we work closely with the Resident Wellness Center, the Dallas Psychoanalytic Center, and our program leadership.

Mentorship Committee

The Mentorship Committee was created to assist every UT Southwestern psychiatry resident with identifying a mentor and engaging in a rewarding relationship that fosters career and personal development. We help with assigning mentors to interns and helping connect residents in postgraduate years 2-4 with mentors at UT&nbspSouthwestern and in the community. We also host various events throughout the year (e.g., Speed Mentoring, Women in Psychiatry Social, Parents Support Groups) to help residents meet potential mentors. For more information, please visit our webpage.

Bad Outcomes Committee

The Bad Outcomes Committee is a psychiatry faculty- and resident-run committee focusing on avenues by which we can discuss, process, and reflect on adverse outcomes in psychiatry. Our group defines a "bad outcome" as any patient care-related event that causes a resident significant distress. Examples include a patient suicide or attempted suicide, a patient’s adverse reaction to medication, or violence by a patient. A main goal of the committee is to ensure that residents are supported when they experience an adverse outcome. We developed the standard operating procedure after an adverse outcome, which is a formal procedure that provides concrete steps that will happen after a resident experiences an adverse event to ensure that the resident is supported.

We plan and implement bad outcomes conferences (also known as morbidity and mortality rounds) quarterly, during the weekly Grand Rounds time. These lectures consist of a faculty member presenting an anonymized case in which an adverse outcome has occurred. The goal is to learn and reflect on the case. We also plan a 4-hour special seminar during didactics in the spring, where we present various topics related to adverse outcomes in psychiatry.

Organized Psychiatry

The Organized Psychiatry Task Force seeks to serve the same purpose as organized psychiatry as a whole, to connect psychiatrists from various portions of the country, state, and local municipalities, in order to promote education, advocacy, and networking. The Task Force accomplishes this purpose by serving as a connection between the psychiatry residency and the Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians (TSPP, a state-organized psychiatry organization) and the North Texas Society of Psychiatric Physicians (NTSPP, a county-organized psychiatry organization). Events throughout the academic year include, but are not limited to, TSPP conferences (Fall and Spring), with their associated Resident Fellow Member committee gatherings, and monthly NTSPP dinner meetings, which include didactics and networking opportunities.