Diversity director says cancer centers should reflect the communities they serve
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October 10, 2022
4 min read
Source/Disclosures
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Source:
Healio Interview
Disclosures:
George reports no relevant financial disclosures.
Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine has appointed Sophia George, PhD, as the first-ever associate director of diversity, equity and inclusion.
George also serves as associate professor in the department of obstetrics/gynecology and reproductive sciences in the division of gynecologic oncology.
In her new role as associate director, George will work to create the vision for and participate in strategic planning of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and oversee the development of the Plan to Enhance Diversity — an NCI requirement that includes programs and services to advance the cancer center’s commitment to equity, cultural humility, anti-racism and anti-discrimination.
As part of Women in Oncology’s “Women on the Move” series, George spoke with Healio about the importance of her new role, how her career has prepared her for the role and what she seeks to accomplish.
Healio: What is the importance of this new role?
George: Diversity and inclusion have been part of our fabric and built into our mission and vision at Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. The NIH requires all NCI-funded cancer centers to have a diversity, equity and inclusion feature because we have observed for many years that there are disparities in cancer care and cancer outcomes, particularly among people of color in the U.S.
The government found it pertinent to determine how we are going to help improve this. As a result of these conversations, the cancer center appointed me as the inaugural associate director for diversity, equity and inclusion. In this new role, I will lead our plan to enhance diversity and equity of course and inclusion efforts across different pillars of the cancer center, including for staff and faculty and training for the types of research that we conduct and the patients included in our clinical trials.
We will do this by ensuring that individuals have what they need to be successful at our institution and the cancer center. We will also aim to ensure the diversity and inclusion of everyone who wants to participate in trials and that includes our local community.
Healio: How has your career so far prepared you for this role?
George: I have been involved in many activities with a lens of diversity and inclusion throughout my academic career. For example, when I was a PhD student, I was involved in outreach to communities in Toronto, where we would expose students, usually socially and economically disadvantaged students, to science. We would talk with them about our science and show them that they could be a scientist.
Sophia George
Additionally, as a postdoctoral fellow, I participated in a fellowship program designed to increase diversity across boards. This encouraged institutions to be intentional about ensuring that a space is created for minoritized persons in industry and academia so that individuals can thrive and experience opportunities to conduct their research. Also, we worked to ensure that the people who are disproportionately affected by these diseases are represented in our work, participate in designing, conducting and analyzing the data — inclusion across the spectrum. My academic work has had diversity, equity and inclusion in its core, and I am now fortunate to be able to use this expertise that I’ve developed over the years.
Healio: What are some of the challenges that you plan to work toward overcoming?
George: As the U.S. demographic continues to change during the next few decades, we have to be prepared as an institution and as a cancer center to serve our diverse community. Our cancer center in Miami is very diverse; it is a minority city. We have to ensure that the people who work within the center are reflective of the community, and to do this, we have to create opportunities to develop leaders — this a challenge that we accept because it is imperative that we are successful. We want to ensure that the science that we conduct is reflective of our community. This will require identifying young leaders and grooming them to be able to sustainably take on leadership opportunities within the cancer center. It will require ensuring that there is a community for these individuals so that they can see a way forward to develop their own careers within the cancer center so that they can be proud of the vision in how we provide care.
These are challenges we have to take on.
Healio: Looking ahead, what do you hope to accomplish in this role within the coming years?
George: This is a big task, and sometimes it feels quite overwhelming thinking about all the components. There is a human resource component to this because we need to identify how we can hire more faculty that are underrepresented in biomedical research, including those who are Black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander and those who are from sexually different minoritized populations. For us, diversity also means both young and old, as well as physical abilities.
My main 1-year goal is to build stronger relationships with all minority institutions in Florida. I aim to have students, trainees and postdocs conduct their research at our cancer center and do so in a meaningful way, so that they have the experience of being an intern at an NCI-designated cancer institution.
My 5-year goal is that we increase the number of faculty who are representative of that diverse population at our institution, but this will not happen overnight. We do have some ‘low-hanging fruit’ because we already encourage minority students to go into cancer research at our institution. Our student population is already very diverse and so how do we make cancer research more attractive to them? This is something that is achievable.
Healio: Is there anything else that you would like to mention?
George: At Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center, our health system has leadership that breeds intention for wanting to do what is best for our community, including diversifying our workforce and engaging the full community. Now we have the support of the University of Miami Health System and University of Miami Miller School of Medicine to amplify these efforts and to ensure that our growing population in South Florida can come to our cancer center and see themselves reflected in those who are employed here. I am grateful for that.
We also must capture global diversity; we have a large immigrant population here in South Florida, and I want individuals to be able to see themselves reflected at an academic campus center. We have the best of the best, cutting-edge science, and they can benefit from that. Members of their own community are contributing to the excellence in cancer care and cancer research. That is something that is not just aspirational, it is achievable, and I am excited about that aspect of my work.
For more information:
Sophia George, PhD, can be reached at sophia.george@med.miami.edu.
Women in Oncology
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