Spotlights
Dr. Lisa J. Skinner’s parents grew up in a rural Ozark Mountain community of about 600 people. Medical care was paid in cash or livestock and was often provided in the home by neighbors. When she and her brother were born, her mother, who was an uninsured teenager at the time, recalls paying out of pocket, cutting the hospitalization short to save money that they didn’t have. She left the Ozarks when she was young but spent summers back on the farm, seeing people she loved suffer from ailments and injuries that were often ignored and untreated. She wishes that she could say that witnessing these disparities inspired her to be a doctor. In truth, the idea of becoming a physician was so implausible to her that she didn’t consider medical school until a college mentor suggested it might be an option for her.
“My approach to EDI is grounded in these experiences. Knowing the value of community motivates me to create a community for young physicians. Remembering how much I did not know as a college student, medical student, and resident inspires me to create an infrastructure that will help everyone thrive. At UCLA, supporting residents is a team sport. Our faculty participates in a holistic admission process that enables us to recruit residents with diverse backgrounds who will learn and grow together. Our coaching program, initiated in 2023 under the leadership of Rachel Brook and Tina Mosaferi, pairs DoM faculty with residents to explore values and set goals. Our subspecialty PDs have become leaders in a fellowship mentorship infrastructure that starts in the first year and extends through the fellowship match. Our APDs and chiefs work with each resident regularly to help them navigate their emerging identities as physicians. All of this support is made possible by a DoM leadership that is committed to developing physician leaders.”
In addition to creating an inclusive culture for UCLA residents, Dr. Skinner and her colleagues are committed to preparing UCLA residents to provide exceptional care to vulnerable patients. In 2020, they initiated a “Tuesday Curriculum” designed to advance the skills and knowledge of all UCLA Medicine Residents in concepts such as social determinants of health, conflict management, advocacy, medical ethics, and leadership. In 2021, they launched the Health Equity and Advocacy Pathway (HEAP) to equip a subset of UCLA residents with enhanced mentorship, education, and clinical skills in caring for traditionally marginalized populations. Dr. Skinner and others have increased their continuity presence at Simms Mann clinic and added electives in street medicine, gender health, and community health. This fall, the program matched 4 residents, who were inspired to follow the footsteps of UCLA GIM thought leaders, into the NSCP program. Dr. Skinner credits the possibility of these initiatives to UCLA faculty such as Keith Norris, Carol Mangione, Hijab Zubairi, Nupur Agarwal, Alice Kuo, Gifty Ntim, Chris Tymchuk, Faisal Saab, Neil Wenger, Lovelee Brown, Utibe Essien, Ale Casillas, Daniel Kozman, Liz Asfaw and too many others to list. “The education and mentorship offered at UCLA will prepare our residents to be thought leaders in the next generation,” she states.
“Being part of the UCLA Department of Medicine is a Program Director’s dream. We attract ambitious, humanistic medical students from all over the country who are then partnered with ambitious, humanistic role models who equip them with the skills to lead. Every match renews my hope for the future of health care, and every graduation reminds me of the power of education to drive opportunity.”
