New guideline for creating unbiased educational content

Richard V. Smith, MD
AAO-HNSF Coordinator for Education

Richard V. Smith, MDWe recently needed to take down a Patient Management Perspectives (Pmp) course, as it had culturally insensitive and biased language. Although this course was created nearly a decade ago, it quickly brought to light an opportunity to improve the way we approach education in our specialty and to develop a guideline to ensure we are creating unbiased education content.

Through input from the Education Steering Committee and reviewed by the Ethics Committee and Diversity/Inclusion Committee, the guideline was developed and approved by the Executive Committee. We are also in the process of developing a new course on unconscious bias that will include ways we can improve our workplace, patient care, and the future of medicine. This course will be made available under the Faculty Development Series at AcademyU.org in early 2019.

I’d like to especially thank Cristina Cabrera-Muffly, MD, Residency Program Director, Department of Otolaryngology, University of Colorado School of Medicine, for her contributions on this initiative.

We are among the first specialties to address this important topic at the Academy level. It is truly a privilege to work with our Academy and membership, all of whom care deeply about how we educate ourselves and care for our patients.

To view the AAO-HNSF Continuing Professional Development Guideline on Creating Unbiased Educational Content, visit www.entnet.org/education.