Addressing Equity, Inclusion, & Belonging in Cardiology

This article is the third in a series from Practical Cardiology taking a deeper look at professionalism and ethics within cardiology after the release of a report from the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Consensus Conference on Professionalism and Ethics.

The second of 5 slideshows included in the series, advisory board member Dr. Gregory Weiss examines the work of each of the 5 task forces who took part in creating the report. In this slideshow, Weiss details the efforts of the second Task Force, which sought to address diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging in cardiovascular medicine.

While many look back on 2020 and remember the COVID-19 pandemic, the year was transformative in many other ways. Paramount among them is the movement to improve racial-, ethnic-, religious-, and gender-based inequality in the United States. In medicine, the undertones of systemic racism were, and continue to be, confronted by those within the field. The second Task Force from the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology Consensus Conference on Professionalism and Ethics sought to identify avenues of eliminating Bias, discrimination, harassment, and racism in professional settings.

This report, "2020 American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology Consensus Conference on Professionalism and Ethics: A Consensus Conference Report," was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.