Statement on Systemic Racism
PRESS RELEASE: July 15, 2020
Racism is a Public Health Crisis – A Call to Action by the Maine Academy of Family Physicians, excerpt below.
“The Maine Academy of Family Physicians condemns all forms of racism and the structures and systems which perpetuate it. …
The Maine Academy of Family Physicians will:
1. Create a committee to examine structural or systemic racism present within our Academy and urgently and purposefully work to dismantle it. Make discussion of our progress a standing agenda item for all Board meetings.
2. Use our advocacy efforts to diminish the social determinants of health that contribute to health disparities.
3. Actively seek to increase the diversity of our membership and leadership.
4. Educate our members on ways to be involved in ending discriminatory practices and improving racial equity within the communities they serve by actively promoting the AAFP’s Center for Diversity and Health Equity and its “EveryONE Project” as guides: (https://www.aafp.org/patient-care/social-determinants-ofhealth/everyone-project/cdhe.html) and making racial equity in health and health care a permanent education topic at the Maine Academy of Family Physicians’ Family Medicine Update, starting in 2021.
5. Hold as a long-term goal to assist in increasing the diversity in Family Medicine by encouraging youth from diverse communities in our state to enter the field of medicine.”