Season Six: Diversity and Inclusion
Creating a more inclusive environment in plastic surgery requires attention to patient care, workplace culture, mentorship, and the everyday experiences of colleagues. This season explores how allyship can move beyond statements of support and become meaningful action. Guests discuss caring for transgender and gender-diverse patients, increasing LGBTQ visibility and belonging, and recognizing discrimination and barriers to participation within the profession. Other episodes consider gender diversity, representation, and the ways organizational culture can either reinforce or challenge exclusion. Through a range of professional and personal perspectives, the season encourages surgeons to examine how their actions, policies, and relationships shape the experience of patients, trainees, and coworkers—and how more thoughtful inclusion can strengthen the profession.
The season premiere opens Enhance Your Practice’s diversity and inclusion season with a conversation about what it means to move beyond good intentions. Listening, self-reflection, discomfort, risk and sustained action all shape how clinicians can support colleagues, trainees, patients and communities more meaningfully.
Host: Ash Patel, MDGuests: Puru Nagarkar, MD; Jennifer Coleman, BA, MA, MS, PhD Published: 09/17/2020
Names, pronouns, bathrooms, documentation, staff education and insurance advocacy all shape the care experience before surgery is ever discussed. For gender affirming patients, those details can determine whether a practice feels affirming or alienating.
Host: Ash Patel, MDGuests: William Kuzon, MD, PhD; Katy Gast, MD Published: 09/17/2020
In this Season 6 conversation on diversity and inclusion, the discussion moves from patient care to the professional realities of LGBTQ physicians in plastic surgery: finding mentors, deciding when to be visible, navigating bias and creating environments where students, residents, faculty and patients can feel safe being themselves.
Host: Ash Patel, MDGuest: Joseph Losee, MD Published: 09/17/2020
Every plastic surgeon deserves to see a future they can imagine for themselves. As part of the Diversity and Inclusion series, this conversation explores how mentorship, representation, and inclusive leadership create opportunities for future generations while strengthening the specialty as a whole.
Host: Ashley Amalfi, MDGuests: Wendy Chen, MD; Shuting (Susan) Zhong, MD; Katerina Gallus, MD Published: 09/18/2020
As part of the Diversity and Inclusion series, this conversation explores how surgeons, allies, and leaders can foster environments where everyone feels heard, supported, and empowered to succeed. By encouraging open dialogue, practicing allyship, and creating psychological safety, each of us has the opportunity to strengthen the future of plastic surgery.
Host: Ash Patel, MDGuests: Kavitha Ranganathan, MD; Erica Sears, MD Published: 09/17/2020
As part of the Diversity and Inclusion series, this conversation explores how diversity, equity, and inclusion strengthen patient care, expand opportunities, and foster innovation across every level of plastic surgery. By investing in mentorship, leadership, and equitable access, the specialty can better serve both its patients and its future workforce.
Host: Ash Patel, MDGuests: Steven Williams, MD; Paris Butler, MD, MPH; Kia Washington, MD Published: 09/17/2020
As Season 6 comes to a close, this conversation explores how organizations can help shape a more inclusive future by embedding diversity and inclusion into their culture, leadership, recruitment, education, and decision-making. The discussion highlights how lasting change happens when values are supported by measurable action.
Host: Ash Patel, MDGuests: Carrie Strom, Senior Vice President of AbbVie and President of Global Allergan Aesthetics; Kamakshi (KZ) Zeidler, MD Published: 09/17/2020