School Notes: School of Medicine
May/June 2019

New initiative supports women in health care

Yale School of Medicine is a signatory member of Time’s Up Healthcare, joining five other medical schools in a network of health-care leaders that is organizing to create safe, fair, and dignified workplaces for women. Galvanized by persistent data on gender inequities in health-care careers, a group of women health-care leaders came together to form Time’s Up Healthcare, which aims to drive new policies and decisions that lead to more balanced, diverse, and accountable leadership; address workplace discrimination, harassment, and abuse; and create equitable and safe work cultures within all areas of the health-care industry. “To have a seat at the table as part of a national group that is looking at these issues and creating best practices will enhance our efforts in this area,” said Darin Latimore, MD, deputy dean of diversity and inclusion, who attended the Time’s Up Healthcare launch on March 1.

Lifting a financial burden

The unit loan—the amount that Yale School of Medicine students who receive need-based scholarships are expected to borrow—has been reduced to $15,000 per year, down from $23,000, for the 2019–20 academic year and thereafter. Together with the unit loan reduction that went into effect for the current academic year, this represents a 50 percent reduction in debt for financially strapped students in a two-year period. “Reducing our students’ debt burden has been one of our highest priorities,” says Robert J. Alpern, dean of the School of Medicine and Ensign Professor of Medicine. “We believe this will have a real impact on those who receive need-based aid and will further enhance our ability to welcome top-tier students from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds who will go on to become tomorrow’s leaders in medicine.”