Episode 11: Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion in Neurology Education

This month we are joined by two neurologist-educators and members of the SEQUINS early career network, Dr. Javier Suarez, MD, and Dr. Jillian Berkman, MD to discuss DEI in neurology education. Dr. Suarez is the site director for the University of Minnesota neurology clerkship and co-director of the Regional Parkinson’s and Movement Disorders Center at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. Dr. Jillian Berkman is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurology’s Stroke Division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she also serves as the director of community health education in the Office of community health and engagement at VUMC. Our conversation focuses on the role of diversity, equity, and inclusion in neurology education – how to promote it, how to teach it, and why it matters. 

Learn more about the SEQUINS early career network here: Suarez JA, O'Neill KA, Berkman J. Finding community for early career health equity researchers. Equity Neuroscience. 2026 Apr;2(1):100018. doi: 10.1016/j.neuros.2025.100018. Epub 2025 Dec 23. PMID: 41626036; PMCID: PMC12857917.

Neuropraxis: The Neurology Educator's Podcast is not recorded as an official podcast of any institution or organization. The views and opinions are those of the individual speakers themselves. Music from Pixabay. Cover art by Carolin Wollny. Editing by Valeria Roldan. New episodes drop first Monday of the month!

Ideas, suggestions, questions? Contact us at neuropraxispodcast@gmail.com. 

Transcript

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SPEAKER_02 0:01

Hello and welcome to Neuropraxis, a podcast for clinician educators and trainees passionate about neurology education. I'm your host, Gleam Engeman. I'm a neurologist and medical educator. On the Neuropraxis Podcast, we turn our attention to neurology education. We discuss the latest topics in education literature, meet the innovators shaping the future of neurology education, and hear about the career journeys of other educators in neurology. Whether you're building a career in medical education or looking for inspiration in your teaching, you're part of our community. So let's reflect and grow together as we blend the art and science of neurology education and put theory into praxis. Today I'm joined by Dr. Javier Suarez, who is a neurologist and movement disorder specialist based at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, where he is also the site director for the University of Minnesota Neurology Clerkship and co-director of the Regional Parkinson's and Movement Disorder Center. And my second guest is Dr. Jillian Berkman, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology's Stroke Division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, where she's also the director of community health education in the Office of Community Health and Engagement at VUMC. Today the focus of our conversation is on the role of diversity, inclusion, and equity in neurology education. How to promote it, how to teach it, and why it matters. Two friends, two mentors, peers, and colleagues who I'm super excited to talk to. So today I'm joined by Dr. Javier Suarez. He's a neurologist based in Minneapolis and has a subspecialty of movement disorders. Completed his medical education at Northwestern University and his neurology residency with me at MGB. He then completed a movement disorders fellowship at the University of Minnesota and is now an attending neurologist at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, where he's a site director for the University of Minnesota Neurology Clerkship and co-director of the Regional Parkinson's Movement Disorder Center. And our other special guest is Dr. Jillian Berkman. Jill is an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology's Stroke Division at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She practices both inpatient and outpatient stroke neurology. She completed her neurology residency in Mass General Brigham, where she was our chief. And during residency, she worked to create and implement a standardized neurology resident curriculum, developed a monthly lecture series for residency, and now serves as director of community health education in the Office of Community Health and Engagement at VUMC. So welcome, Jill and Javier.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

I'm super excited to invite you both, and we have a big agenda of various things that I have questions for you about. But what I really wanted to focus our conversation on today was the role of DEI or diversity, inclusion, and equity in neurology education. And really thinking about how do we promote it, how do we teach it? What do we even mean by this and why it matters? And when I thought of this topic, I really couldn't um think of any two better people to invite because you're you're like the node in my mind that's connected to this topic is the two of you. And so uh I'd love if we could just start by hearing a little bit from each of you about your journey so far, your kind of career journey as a neurology educator, how you got involved in, and maybe some a little thread of what you do related to DEI. And we're gonna revisit these topics, but maybe Joe, I'll have you go first.

SPEAKER_00 4:10

I've always been interested in social justice and through that, applying that to health and health equity. And um, I was very involved in medical school on the topic, and because of that, everyone told me you have to go into primary care, emergency medicine, or pediatrics. Um, I just didn't think that was the case. I think we need folks who are equity-minded in every specialty because we know there are health disparities in every single specialty, even within neurology, within every single subspecialty, there are different inequities and health disparities. And so um, when once I chose neurology and I started to think, well, is there anyone doing equity work in neurology? And there was, even back then, a you know, small group of people. Um, and so that's actually how I picked where I wanted to go to residency, is I was targeting programs that already had an attending more people there. So I didn't have to make the path completely from scratch, and I could actually get some mentorship, which if you are a learner out there, I highly recommend doing that. Um and so I went to the A conference the fall of fourth year, so pre-match, pre-interviews, and I went to a session that was on health equity education for neurologists, which personal plug, we do that every year at AAN now, so come check us out. Um but Altaf Saadi, who still works at MGH, um, was presenting with the current at the time MGB program director about a curriculum that they were doing at MGB, and that really got me interested. And so when I was fortunate enough to match at MGB, and even as a first year, actually, I I started to reach out and say, like, is this curriculum still going on? I reached out to Altoff. Um, and it had turned out that when she graduated, it kind of went away. And so that was an opportunity for me to help with her mentorship rebuild something. Um, and so that got implemented my second year of um, it took like a whole year of being an intern and just learning how to be a resident, but that second year of residency were was able to to do a curriculum, and because I ended up obviously being there and then being a chief, had my hand in it for at least while I was there, and I think there's still some semblance of something there now. Um you know, maybe we'll get to this later, but I I have some ideas on how to make stuff like that sustainable. Um, but once I graduated, I I am from Nashville and I wanted to be back home in the stroke belt as a stroke neurologist. Um, and so now I help run our curriculum here at Vanderbilt. Um, and I also do a health equity curriculum that's called Healthcare for All for every first-year Vanderbilt medical student. And I run a certificate for residents and fellows that's now titled Certificate of Community and Population Health. Um, but the concept is that it's a health equity-focused certificate designed to give residents and fellows a little bit more expertise and to have some sort of project while they're in training. So that was a long-winded answer, but I feel so lucky to get to get to practice neurology and do health equity work. And and I love when they even overlap.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

So many gems there. I mean, first like equity forward, you know, like that was what led you, and then you you found the rest. Um, the idea of mentorship and the importance of that, the spark of an opportunity, you know, not being thrown away by the gap, but being like, let me fill this gap that I see, and then moving from the initial work you did to building out larger programs. So I hope to revisit um each of these. But let's hear from Javi.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Actually, if you don't mind before a connection between Javi and I, and I hope you will talk about your um like Sila style stuff that you've done, um, simulation stuff. But as there have actually been almost a little bit of backlash, or it's been a little bit harder to do DEI work over the last year or so, um uh I was pointed towards um Sequins, which is Society for Equity and Neurosciences, and it's a group of neuroscientists who are doing equity work, and it has been so nice to just also connect with a group, a network of like-minded individuals um and learn from them. And that's actually how I got reconnected with Javi. Um, and so that's been really wonderful, and I think is a nice connection to throw back at him as we we hear what he's doing.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Yes, definitely. Yeah, so we'll I'll I'll chat about that um in a bit as uh uh as well. My my path is a little bit more um maybe not haphazard is the word, but uh but a little less directed than the than than Jillian's, who's had like a very nice um career in the in the space.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

I I I've had an interest well you are movement hobby, so there's gotta be some ataxia involved.

SPEAKER_01 9:43

That's yeah, that's exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:45

Uh a little bobbing and weaving. Um but I I really have been interested in it from an early uh point as well, even back in in college and medical school, a lot of my focus was kind of towards youth. Uh I didn't really have a sort of mentor figure or a great kind of person to help me navigate the even just getting into medicine. Uh neither of my parents are doctors. And, you know, we were very fortunate to be in the United States. I was born in Columbia and I moved here when I was very little, and my parents worked, you know, really hard to give me a a great life, but they didn't know anything about applying to college or applying to medical school, and so I kind of just had to figure it out. Um and they made it easy for me to to do. I was fortunate enough not to have to, you know, work a ton, um, and I was able to really focus on that process uh because of their hard work. But still, it's still a weird and daunting process. It's not exactly super intuitive, uh especially with all the extracurriculars that you're kind of expected to do. No one really tells you until unless you really have someone to guide you through the process. And so a lot of what I uh was doing in college and medical school was focused on that, was helping younger people who don't have a background in medicine or don't have family in medicine, but are interested get into and uh and explore at the very least, if they're if they're interested in that. A lot of youth outreach, a lot of partnering with local schools, both medical middle schools and high schools in Chicago, where I did uh college and med school, a little bit in Boston as well, uh partnering with some high schools, going out and talking to the kids about what I do as at that time I was a neurologist. And in fellowship as well at the university, they they do these um sort of career fairs-esque where they invite people in and have them talk to, again, local high schoolers about what their careers are, and and I talk to them about neurology and neuroscience and what that uh, you know, how cool it is and how fun it is, and and really getting people to become interested in it. We're always looking for more neurologists, and we want people who are from all walks of life, and not necessarily uh, you know, the the typical diversity that you might expect from, you know, a college brochure, but but really truly uh people from many different backgrounds and experiences, and I think that's what makes the field fun and interesting, is is meeting all sorts of people. So now in residency with with you guys, I did you mentioned the simulation curriculum and that's something that I got interested in because I really enjoyed the simulation curriculum that had already existed. And I so I got involved with with one of our co-residents at the time, Dan Harrison, who was really into the the curriculum and he was helping um carry it forward. And I just pitched him an idea. I just said, hey, you know, I was thinking about these cases. What if we did one where it was a stroke case but the patient didn't speak English? And what if we just kind of ran it similarly, but that was kind of the point was how to use an interpreter correctly. And he was like, that's a great idea. And so I kind of did some other stuff and put a different case together also for someone with medication adherence problems, and we just kind of put it together. And he was like, Well, what if we made this a little more formal? And so I ended up reaching out to Altaf Sadi, who who Gillian already mentioned, she was a great resource for helping really refine the cases and make it true to life and also true to neurology and also true to education. And then uh Ricky um I don't know what we were Ricky McFaylan Figaro. I'm sorry, I was blanking on his uh his full name, but uh he was a huge, huge help. And he's uh a neuro oncologist who he's now, I think he's in New York now. But he was a great, great mentor, and absolutely could not have done it without them. So absolutely echo Jillian's call for seeking out mentorship because it's just tough. If you don't know what you're doing, it's really hard to figure it out on your own. And absolutely everyone should feel like they have someone that they can reach out to and and guide them along their paths and just kind of narrow in their goals. So and and now in fellowship again, I I I did more of that community outreach again. Uh, and in as an attending, helping out with the medical students in their in their clerkship.

SPEAKER_02 14:28

I really loved hearing your story and kind of both the areas where they overlap and the areas where they differ. And hopefully it's showing for our listeners that you know there's just so much ways in which you can practice equity work and DEI work, um, whether it's through actually bringing people into the field and in diversifying that pipeline or in teaching others about it or in doing in the work that you do every day or choosing the places that you want to work. So I'm kind of curious, um, I guess in about two things. Maybe I'll do a two-for-one question, which you know is never advised, but nonetheless I'll do it, which is kind of how do you conceptualize the DEI work that you do? Like how would you define it? Um, and then why education? Both of you have sort of used education as like one of the, I'm I'm sure just one of the levers that you pull. I know you're also involved in research and we can get to that. But you know, what's the role of education and DI and and and that sweet spot where they intersect? Uh, maybe I'll hand it to Javi first.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

Yeah, that's a great question. I I think that the biggest thing is to remember that the way that we learn uh throughout kind of the, especially medical school, especially in the days where there was the the kind of book work and then you kind of do the clinical work. I think now medical schools are transitioning to this, like they're they're extra putting extra emphasis on getting people into, you know, getting students into the clinical environment faster and sooner. So they're kind of we're seeing this contraction of the didactic period of medical school. But uh it I just remember it be you learned everything kind of by the textbook, and then you see it in real life, and people just don't behave the way that you expect, and conditions don't present themselves in the way that you kind of learned in the in the textbook. And there's so many factors that goes into that go into why that is, why people might have more trouble with it with a certain symptom. You know, why are they not taking this or that medication? Why do they keep presenting to the emergency room with the same complaint? Uh and it's not necessarily because their disease uh physiology itself is different, but because of some external societal factor that uh that is impacting that that presentation. And so seeing that and experiencing that, I think, uh, is uh important in the way that it guides your decision making, because you just there's some treatments or some pathways to diagnosis that are quote unquote optimal and they're they're guideline-based or evidence-based, but it just doesn't work for a particular person because they can't afford this or that medication, they live too far from the nearest MRI center, or you know, in my world a DAT scan uh is is hard to come by. Um and so you have to make different clinical decisions based on the patient that's in front of you and what their particular barriers may be to optimal care. And so teachings m whatever stage you're in, students, residents, fellows, about what those might be and how to navigate them, I think makes people better doctors because you're uh you're less you're less caught off guard. There's more in your textbook presentation, there's more in your differential for how to treat people that uh that comes to mind sooner rather than later. You're not as kind of shocked by the when they tell you something like, well, I I I stopped taking this because I just couldn't afford it anymore. That's just less shocking if you're anticipating that as a possibility. So that that's kind of where my interest in, but just from a purely if you even just think about it from a purely practical how to be a good doctor, I think it's just important to know these things.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

I just love to hear. I just wanted to like reach to the phone and hug Javi because I heard that the computer. I mean, I just think that your patients, I mean, to go, I will also answer your question separately, but like your patients are gonna have better outcomes if you're paying attention to social drivers of health for that patient. So, what are all of those social factors, like Javi was saying, that are affecting your patient's health, are affecting if they can show up to your appointments. If you prescribe eloquence, but don't ask if they can afford it, and then they have a stroke because they weren't taking their eloquists, whose fault is that? You know, and I'm not saying it's all the doctor's fault, but I'm saying that we need to be having those conversations outright at the beginning, taking good social histories. How are you able to afford your meds? How do you remember to take your meds? We tell stroke patients you got to exercise 150 minutes a week. Well, is there a safe place to exercise where you live? Um, do you have access to healthy foods? Like we just prescribe these things that we want our patients to do in their life without actually asking if that's accessible to them. Um, and so I totally agree it like is so basic as like how to be a good doctor, um, that it is so important for every level, including the senior levels and attendings. Um, and when you ask like how I conceptualize DEI, like the word that popped to mind was education, because that's I think all neurologists love to be educators. Um but a lot of what I have focused so much of my efforts in in the equity space is education, is educating the next generation of doctors, the next generation of neurologists, the current generation of attendings. How can we do better now and how can we help shape the future providers? Um, and a lot of that is through education. I think there are other ways to try to tackle health equity. Um and one of those is thinking about the diversity of workforce, and and that is an important effort that people there we need people who are also focusing on that, or like pipeline, which is a little bit what Javi was saying, is like how are we getting out to communities that don't have a lot of physicians in them and helping trying to recruit and show that there are pathways. Um how can we cure poverty? You know, there's a lot of different ways to try to tackle equity, but I my ethos, if you will, is like really focusing in the education space.

SPEAKER_02 21:18

Um and then your second question was about Well, you you combine them to really why education. There's so many elements I want to pull out of what you guys have said. I mean, the first is just I love this pushback to my question of like what's the add-on of a DI. It's not an add-on, it's fundamental, it's good medicine, it's good practice. And I love this like reframing that it's really just a basic part of what we do. So when we teach the history, we have to teach the history. When we teach the exam, we have to teach the, you know, the disability informed, the trauma informed exam. When we teach the management plan, we have to think about how are we gonna manage the the cultural gap, the financial gap. Whatever gap that's you know that's got to be on the problem list. So I just really like this um bringing us back to the integrated nature of it, and then I was just thinking, you know, as an educator, with this idea of a bringing in a diverse workforce or a diverse student body, is that these students may need to have different learning needs, and so really thinking about equity of the education that we deliver and the diversity of our learners as well.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

That's interesting because I part of my work is doing a class that's all first-year medical students, so you're obviously gonna have different learners, people who come from different backgrounds. Um, and you know, I'd say our my general format is that we try to bring in a community leader or a Vanderbilt specific leader or both to come and talk on a topic. But we have pre-work, and I love to do a podcast or a TED talk, something that's maybe a little more interactive that they can listen to on their way to school. Um, and then we'll often you know to round it out. We'll either have small groups where they're practicing case-based learning on the topic, um, or we'll also try to include at least an essay question on the topic on their exams so that students are not going through this curriculum thinking this is extra, but instead they're learning this is part of health, and it is just as important as learning how the kidneys work. And so you're gonna be tested on both. And so I do think that that's helpful in in thinking about curriculum. And then, yeah, like I was saying, trying to do the cases, also having some didactics. We did a panel, but so trying to have a little bit of differences in how we present the material, I think could help different learners.

SPEAKER_02 23:46

Yeah, it's so helpful to hear about the ways in which you can teach this. And I love how you mentioned many interactive approaches, case-based learning and panels and kind of self-reflection. Javi, I wanted to go back a little bit to simulation because simulation is something that is quite common when we think about acute neurological emergencies and stroke and status epilepticus. And what I loved about your curriculum was that you shifted the focus. It was like it started out just like you expect, you know, it was a stroke or status, and then there was a refocusing. And I think that we can do that very powerfully in simulation because we can set the objectives and we can decide where the story starts and unfolds. And so, can you talk a little bit about how you um how you developed that, those cases, how you adjusted them with help from your mentors, and how did it go running that curriculum?

SPEAKER_01 24:35

Yeah, that that was a fun thing to do because it did kind of force you to think a little bit of how how do you make this useful, helpful, but also not too cheesy. I feel like you can kind of imagine how it can get a little preachy, it can get a little bit, you know, feel pull you out of the experience if the focus is shifted away from the purely clinical. Already simulation is something that you have you go into knowing that you're not treating a real stroke. You go into it knowing you're not treating a real patient in real status. And so the suspension of disbelief has to happen at the level of the resident or the student or what, you know, whatever the level it is that you're doing. Uh, and so you have to get that that buy-in and the the actors, so to speak, right? The patient uh actors, the the person playing the nurse, you know, because it's a simulation, there's oftentimes in many simulation centers, there's almost kind of like a a person in the chair, kind of this this voice from above that acts as the various other members of the care team that, you know, you don't necessarily uh obviously it's very difficult to hire enough separate human beings to act as a full, fully staffed hospital. So someone has to be the person being like, okay, well, if you call nephrology, what would nephrology say in this situation? If you call radiology, what would they say? Uh and so all of that has to be kind of thought about ahead of time because you you don't really know exactly what the residents are gonna ask for, like when they're the learners are gonna come in and they're gonna take this case, you want them to take it seriously, and so they might ask for a certain test result. And if you hadn't thought of that, you need to be able to at least, you know, have someone think on the fly uh about what they're gonna say. And so adding an extra layer of, well, now you need to think about uh uh something that's not a clinical question that they might ask, right? They might ask about how they're taking your medications, or they might really get into uh how much alcohol you're drinking, where did you sleep last night, do you have a safe place to stay? Uh is tough. And then when I did the the the case where the patient did not speak English as their first language, how do you how do you simulate that? Because we first we started with, well, uh easy peasy, I can speak Spanish, Ricky can speak Spanish, a couple people can speak Spanish, we'll just do it that way. But then some of the residents, when they were coming in to do the case, well, they just started speaking Spanish, and then that it kind of eliminated the need for the interpreters like, well, that's not really the point of the case, like it's not testing whether or not you can speak Spanish. Um, and so then how do you make that believable? Where, like, okay, now you have to pretend not to understand what they're saying, even though you do. And so the kind of workaround that we came up with was, well, we're just gonna speak a nonsense language. So there's no way that anybody could possibly understand what we're saying. It's just a fake made-up language that me and the the the patient and the family member speak and the interpreter speaks, right? So there's no way to for the learner to be able to bypass the interpreter. Like they have to use this, this, this again, fake interpreter or simulated interpreter. Um and that was tough because what do you make it sound like, right? You you don't you don't kind of want to you the other thing we we uh at some point thought was, well, maybe we'll pretend to speak kind of a more obscure real life language that it's unlikely for people to to know and again try to pretend to speak. But that that felt a little odd, like kind of speaking I don't, you know, fake Japanese or fake some other language. That also feels a little weird, right? That doesn't feel uh quite in the spirit of what we're trying to achieve. And so again, we we thought that the fake language was a was a decent way to get around it. Uh but it was it's it again is another way that kind of pulls you out. It's like, okay, this person's clearly speaking it like gibberish. But I uh but the the residents, you know, they took it in stride and they're like, okay, I understand the point of this. So it was a challenge, but I think an interesting one, and I think we came up with a great of with a creative result. And the other thing that that does is now anybody can be the patient, anybody can be the interpreter, because you know, you don't need to come up with people who speak the same non-English language as your cast. Anybody can just pretend to speak a fake language and kind of go through the case that way. So it's really easy to apply it to any situation and any, you know, uh academic center can take the the materials and and adapt it uh to them. You don't need to have these people speak the same language. So uh yeah, that was uh an interesting and fun thing to to kind of work around.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

Who knew that gibberish was a universal um unifier?

SPEAKER_01 29:26

Yeah, that's right. The great uh the great bridge.

SPEAKER_02 29:29

And Javi, you I am gonna shout you out because you and your uh colleagues did publish this as a curriculum resource report in neurology education. It's called simulation-based education to promote health equity skills in neurology residence. And maybe for the listeners, you could just share like what's special about that kind of publication.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Yeah, so that's a a cool resource because it allows people who have come up with these kind of maybe more esoteric, more kind of uh niche curriculum, and especially if they're a little bit smaller in scope, to share it with other people who might have the same interest. Uh and that way the what you the other thing is what you think is your niche interest is actually kind of broad bigger than you think. There's plenty of people who are interested in this, uh, and being able to share that and get that out there is is great because you you you as the person who maybe is trying to come up with the curriculum, seeing what's out there and saying, oh, okay, this is cool. I can see how I can implement this in my center. You know, okay, I can take this and tweak this and make this make sense for us. And then also seeing, okay, if I come up with something, then I can share it. And it becomes this great kind of uh feedback loop where you can communicate with other educators, but then also uh become a learner of education yourself. And it's just a great kind of platform to be able to share things.

SPEAKER_02 31:00

Javi, uh thanks again for sharing uh that uh opportunity, and hopefully others will check it out. We'll make sure to put a link in the show notes to your report. I wanted now to shift gears back to you, Jillian, because I know you mentioned you also started your early health equity work as a resident even before that, but now you've had this opportunity to develop larger scale curricula. And I'm wondering what you've learned along the way in terms of developing large-scale curricula for the first-year medical students and for others through your role in the community health center.

SPEAKER_00 31:31

Yes, I would say um documentation is important. So you want to take notes, what worked well, what didn't work well, have a place that you can hold. Um, you know, if you want to do this every year, you want to have some something that you can refer back to and say, okay, what lectures did I do last year? What speakers did I have? Did this go well? Did it not go well? Um, I think the fact that I alluded to this in the beginning, but I think actually having faculty resident run curriculum is amazing as long as you also have a faculty member who is not gonna graduate and leave, um, because then I think it has a home. So with our resident, we still have a neurology curriculum, and I'm always a faculty advisor, and the residents do run it, so some years it goes better than others. Um, and I try to let them have that leadership experience and and let them try to help design it with giving some input. Um because I'm that's part of teaching, right? Like helping them grow as educators. Um but for the for the medical student, like kind of larger curriculum, it's also keeping track of what we do and also getting feedback from the resident, uh, excuse me, medical students about what they like, what they didn't like, seeing how they do on the exams with the questions, right? So, you know, for the most part, so far they've done really well, and most of them get it. Um we even kind of tried to see, well, how many med students are coming in with some background in the equity space? And it's uh somewhere around like that 50% mark. So there's obviously room to grow it, right? We want everyone to leave Vanderbilt Medical School having exposure to some foundational equity topics, which I'm sure you all feel that way about your respective academic places, and I feel that way about the neurology residents here, that I want them to also understand the importance of thinking about neurological outcomes for all patients, no matter what they look like, where they live, what language they speak. Yeah, but you know, when I think about it, I I think a lot about like um how we're measuring success and how we're sustaining the curriculum. And then I think the other thing I'd say is like continuing to innovate. So just every year looking at are there new papers out, is there new podcasts, or is there something new that we could add for the pre-work? Um do I need to update slides with anything? So just trying to, is there a new topic? Like we added rural health for the first time, um, and it was amazing. And we need to do it more. We need more opportunities. And so not being afraid to add new topics, um, I think would be another thing. We did indigenous health um this year. We're doing firearm safety. So some topics that weren't originally part of the curriculum that we've been adding over time, and that's also really exciting.

SPEAKER_02 34:40

I love how you're pointing us to some of the basic principles of good curriculum development. It reminds me of you know, Kern's development cycle. You start with the needs and your assessment, the exams can feed into that into the next year. You design the components, you keep it fresh. It's a living document, you're adding more, and then you move them through these stages of showing their knowledge, showing their skill set, and hopefully, as you, you know, over time showing it in different areas from first year through to practice.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Yes, that's that's like the next part. It's like how are we continuing to assess that fourth year they have the sustained knowledge? Um, so yeah, that's a little bit harder, but I totally agree. We want to we want to show overtime success too.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Both of you have mentioned the importance of mentorship. You've also kind of name-dropped a few of the programs and opportunities that trainees could have, whether it's going to AN to the annual health equity forum, or potentially considering joining Sequence. So I'm wondering if each of you could share a little bit about kind of what advice you have for trainees who might be interested in integrating health equity work in their neurology experience, um, and if there are any specific resources that they might turn to, whether nationally or elsewhere, that you could recommend.

SPEAKER_00 36:01

I can go first for this. Actually, it's funny, I interviewed for our stroke fellowship, and I had an applicant who was really interested in global health. Um, and I said, you know, I pointed her into some people I knew who do global health and who I went to MGB with, like um Katie Holroyd. She lives because this applicant lived in New York City, and I said, reach out to them, send them an email, look who's doing the work, who's publishing work in what you're interested in, and in neurology and the equity space. We are all so happy to meet with you on Teams, grab a coffee, clue you into things. Like, we love it. So I think that's one thing is like who are the people doing what you want to do and how can we help make those connections. Um, and conferences are a great way to do that because you can say, Hey, Dr. Suarez, I are you going to AAN? I would love to connect and talk a little bit more about how you were successful with the simulations that you were doing. Um, and then boom, right there you've you've networked and you've got a connection. Um, I do think a lot of the sub-specialty conferences too, like International Stroke Conference has a whole equity day. And so paying attention to those conferences and looking at the agendas, who is talking on what subjects, and go meet those people after they talk. I think those are really great ways to build connections. And then join our early career network at Sequins if you're interested. That's a um another way to try to build community, or we're trying to build community. And Sequins has its own conference, so it's in May this year. It's actually gonna likely be part of an A pre-conference in the future. Um, but that's another way, I think, to meet folks doing equity work.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Great advice. And um, poor Dr. Sware's inbox is gonna um explode after this excellent advice. But Javi, anything to add?

SPEAKER_01 38:02

Not a ton. I think it's uh the the the hard part is so much of mentorship is getting that that first kind of thing going. It it's it's hard to find someone that you mesh well with right away. And so that's the other thing that you may have to be just be ready for that initial meeting to not necessarily blossom between the most amazing, you know, mentorship relationship of your life. It's something that there's plenty of people who are doing really awesome work. And at first you might think that the you know you're interested in someone's work, but their mentorship style and your learning style doesn't necessarily mesh. And so there's there's a lot of folks, like Jen said, who are happy to talk to you and meet with you. A lot of it is has to kind of come from you most of the time, because you know, when there's everyone's busy, and so people don't necessarily know what you are or aren't interested in. You kind of have to do a little bit of that early legwork to find someone. Uh and then it may take a couple of tries before you find someone that you really gel with and and can help you kind of grow and and wants to grow together with you. Uh, but that's that's okay, that's part of the process. And sometimes, you know, you have one great project with with one or two kind of mentors, and then it kind of naturally evolves into connections with other people that they know, and that kind of snowballs from there. And so uh always be ready as uh for the kind of unexpected. My path has been a little ping-pongy. Uh, some people's path is a little bit more direct, uh, but there's not necessarily a a right or a best way. The at the end of the day, you you have to kind of be ready to change course if you need to, if it makes sense for you and your interests and your career. Um, but the bottom line is that people are happy to get that ball moving. It's just uh about continuing to carry that momentum forward that often falls on um on you to decide what path that ball ends up rolling.

SPEAKER_02 40:11

I think that's super good advice. I mean, mentorship relationships are relationship, and relationships take work. And I think you're highlighting the importance of active menteeship, sort of taking the initiative, take being perseverant, um, updating, finding different opportunities, finding a good match. But I love that advice. Like, try and keep trying. So you mentioned uh Jill, this early career network within the Society of Equity Neuroscience or sequence. And I'm curious if there was anything else um either of you wanted to add about kind of the gold initiative and how it's going so far in its first iteration.

SPEAKER_01 40:51

Yeah, it's it is definitely in its first iteration. It's we've got baby steps, it's in the early phases of the early career network. Uh, Gillian, and then we're we're working with uh a different neurologist named Kimberly O'Neill. She is out of NYU. And we are just trying to get connect people as best we can. We're really working on just kind of creating this group of people with like interests that are in a phase of their career that is just tough. It's tough to get started. It's sometimes it's hard to know kind of where to go. Oftentimes, you know, within the world of medical education, it's such an interesting field because everything is so regimented for so long. I mean, everybody has to do kind of the same stuff. You got to do your four years of college, you gotta do your four years of med school. The curriculum is what it is for all of medical school, with some exceptions, or at electives and whatever. And then residency is what it is for for everybody. Again, with some welcome room fellowships, depending on where you go, can be rigid or not. And then suddenly you just like can't figure it out. You just have to figure out how to apply to uh to jobs and figure out what what your c career is gonna look like. Uh, and so that those early years can be intimidating, and especially for folks who have this interest in health equity work, like Jillian mentioned, if you're if you're serious about doing scholarly work in this field, it's not really super easy to get funding right now. The the interest in the funding sources in these types of projects is low compared to what it has been in the past. And so trying to just band together and create a network of real solidarity and and lifting everybody up so that we can you know really have a strong kind of next generation of health equity uh researchers and and uh scientists and neurologists and anyone who's interested in in this uh space. So we're we're we're kind of in the early phases of putting it together. We're we're uh working on getting a mentorship network going as a true mentorship program where we match people uh with mentors and mentees who have similar interests. But again, it's still early phases, so so stay tuned. Uh there's definitely a uh a link to to sign up, and we put together a bit of a kind of our mission statement that that uh was published in the in the sequence journal as well. So we may maybe we can share that um so people who are interested can can just read a little bit about it. But yeah, it's early phases, but hopefully we'll continue to snowball.

SPEAKER_02 43:39

I I love that. I'm a huge believer in the value of community and connecting people, and it seems like the early career career network is creating like a safety net of mentorship and connection that's gonna keep people afloat.

SPEAKER_00 43:52

Yeah, the other thing that we've been doing is uh quarterly having these Inspire webinars, so we're showcasing an early. Career neuroscientist and their work. And so they'll present like what they're working on and then you know some tips on how they got there. And so I think that's those are actually all available on YouTube, so you can check them out. Um, but it's also a great opportunity to learn from some people who are trying to do this, who are really either a trainee or in their first five years post-grad. Um, and yeah, I think we have to like band together, learn from each other, share resources. Um, and so that's what we're trying to do.

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Well, what a perfect segue as we close up because I think you guys have given us a preview of what those episodes might be like hearing from early career uh clinician educators who are doing this work and inspiring others. So as we close out, I just want to ask a final question, which is what's exciting you in your work today and uh what's coming up next for you? Maybe we'll hear from Jill first.

SPEAKER_00 44:57

I don't know what the answer is to that. Um I think you know, I I think the the medical school curriculum right now has been something that I've been really focused on, and so I am really excited to continue to develop it. It moved from um an elective, so it was just the students who are choosing to take that. We'd have about like 16 students per class to um making it for every single student, and so that's been a really fun challenge because you're having students not just the students who are like, I know this is important and I want to learn it and be here and spend extra time doing it, but you're having the students who are like, Why am I learning about this? Learning about it. And so I always find that more challenging, but I I love that, and um I it's been a really exciting part, and then I'm looking forward to AAN and connecting with everyone and um going to the reunions. I think that's always a fun part of AAN and learning from other neurologists, and then after that I've got the sequins conference, so some fun networking coming up. And reach out if you're gonna be at AAN or Sequins and you want to meet. I'm happy to always chat or we can do a teams. Your mentors can be anywhere. Thanks, Jill.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

Thanks for that advice. Javi?

SPEAKER_01 46:18

Yes, uh, yeah, similar to to Jill. I mean, I I'm in uh kind of an interesting kind of transition point where the you know, I'm working at the at the Minneapolis VA. Uh I am working with the University of Minnesota, so trying to kind of see how I can expand my uh my role in the actual educational process for currently the medical students, uh, but then also with the the movement disorders fellows, uh seeing how we can incorporate more of this uh into the neurology education at that level. Uh so excited to just see and continue to work with my uh my colleagues at the at the university who I did my my fellowship with. They happen to be uh very involved at the medical school level, so it's just a nice continuity there. Uh certainly really looking forward to seeing how the early career network continues to grow and kind of what it morphs into over time. It's been great getting to uh learn from the different folks from all over the country. So definitely there's there's people doing cool stuff all over the place. And um it's it's easier than ever to to talk to and connect with people. So please, yeah, like Jillian said, do not be uh afraid to to just send send that email and and connect. That's I think it'll be more important than ever going forward is to build a good community of of like-minded interests and and stay stay strong together.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Well, I just wanted to thank the two of you for coming on the show today and sharing your advice. We're fortunate in that sometimes I get to speak to people who are more senior leaders and kind of further ahead in their career. But what you're showing us is that it starts early, it starts today and it starts as a trainee. And I love that you're saying that you're not quite sure what's ahead because you're still at the beginning of it. And I love that model of inspiration and that your advice is take the challenges and call them opportunities and reach out to others, and that's where it begins. So thank you to you both. Um loved having you, love hearing from you. NeuroPraxis, the Neurology Educators podcast, was created and produced by Galena Gayman. It is not recorded as an official podcast of any institution or organization. The views and opinions are those of the individual speakers themselves. Music from Pixabay. Cover art by Carolyn Folney, editing by Valeria Browlden. Want more content like this? Be sure to subscribe to the Neuropraxis Podcast wherever you get your podcasts. Have questions, comments, or suggestions for other podcast episodes? Contact us at neuropraxispodcast at gmail.com. Tell your friends and spread the word. Thanks for joining us.