Cheryl Martin (Host): This is Healthy with VCU Health.
Coming up, the first in a series of conversations with our Vice President and
Chief Diversity Officer at VCU Health, Dr. Marcelle Davis and team members
throughout our healthcare system about their commitment to diversity, equity
and inclusion and its impact on health.

Here with Dr. Davis today, is Dr. Marlon Levy, Interim Chief
Executive Officer VCU Health. He's also the Interim Senior Vice President of
VCU Health Sciences. Dr. Levy will discuss how VCU Health's organizational
commitment to this work has a positive influence on our patients, workforce and
community. This is Healthy with VCU Health. I'm Cheryl Martin. Welcome to both
of you.

Marcelle Davis, DSL: Thank you so much, Cheryl.

Marlon Levy, MD, MBA: Great to be with you Cheryl.

Host: Dr. Davis, let me begin with you. Tell us about
your role at VCU Health.

Marcelle Davis, DSL: Cheryl, thank you so much. My role
as Vice President of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in short form, is to
ensure that equity is at the core of everything we do, say and touch here at
the health system. In long form, that means that I partner with all functional
areas of HR, like talent acquisition, talent management, learning and
development, total rewards, business advisory, and employee relations, to
ensure that DEI is integrated into all of those areas because HR truly is the
heartbeat of our health system. And HR is built to support our team members,
who's roles are to take care of and support our patients. I also work with
clinical leaders to evolve and improve what they are living in our clinical
spaces.

And this means sometimes having difficult conversations about
unconscious bias and microaggressions and the significant impact that those
things have on our patient care.

Host: Now, I mentioned that this will be a series of
conversations, Dr. Davis, so please talk about the purpose of this series and
why you chose to begin with Dr. Levy.

Marcelle Davis, DSL: Sure, I'm happy to, and I'm
incredibly excited about this series. The purpose of this series is twofold.
First to openly and really transparently discuss health disparities that exist
in healthcare. And second, is really to identify solutions that we at VCU
Health are currently working on to close that gap. And so to set a baseline, the
CDC defines health disparity as preventable differences in the burden of
disease, injury, violence, or opportunities to achieve optimal care that are
experienced by socially disadvantaged populations. And really, I chose Dr. Levy
as the inaugural guest for the series because he is our interim CEO of VCU
Health System. He sets the tone for the things that we commit to, and we all
look to him to really be our beacon and set the example. Aside from that, he's
brilliant and pretty awesome.

Host: Okay. So Dr. Levy, with that introduction, is
there anything you'd like to add about your background?

Marlon Levy, MD, MBA: I'd be delighted. So first of all,
Dr. Davis is way exaggerating my qualifications, but, that's okay. It's a great
privilege to be the Interim CEO. I came to VCU in 2015. I came from Texas. I
was not in academic medical centers prior to my career, but I'm a transplant
surgeon by training, and ran transplant teams for a long, long time.

I was recruited to VCU to run the transplant team and help it
grow, which we've done, developed some expertise on the business side of
things, and then was asked to step into the Interim CEO role approximately six
months ago.

Host: Now VCU Health's mission is to preserve and
restore the health for all people of Virginia. Dr. Levy, could you explain what
that means and how health equity fits into that mission?

Marlon Levy, MD, MBA: I sure can. I want to take a step
back and talk a little bit about DEI more broadly. We bring those two letters
together. They're almost glued together now as they should be. I want to
emphasize the D and the I and then focus then more on the E, if I can. So
diversity and inclusion are not just critical to who we are and what we do.
They are essential to our very identity. It's absolute fact that we have a very
diverse workforce. And very diverse patients. We are a safety net hospital.
We're probably the prototypical safety net health system, not just in downtown
Richmond, but in rural Virginia with the two facilities that we have.

One at South Hill and one in Tappahannock. Where by the way,
the performance on health metrics are sometimes as poor as they are in the
inner cities with our most vulnerable populations. So it's absolutely essential
for us to understand our diversity and be inclusive in our workforce because
that reflects our patients as well.

Equity is a very specific term and to me and to all of us, it
means, as Dr. Davis has so articulately put it, it means that all parameters of
healthcare, not just outcomes, but also access, the ability to see specialists,
to get the highest level cares regardless of your social or economic
background, are really the same.

That doesn't mean of course, lowering standards to the least
performing members of our community, but rather raising the standards so that
everybody has the highest achievable standards in terms of performance, for
example, outcomes in healthcare, but also access to healthcare, the ability to
see specialists or primary care in a timely manner, and to get the care that
you need as soon as you need it.

Host: So Dr. Levy, how does this commitment to DEI
initiatives influence your leadership at VCU Health?

Marlon Levy, MD, MBA: I think DEI, broadly speaking, is
a lens through which we look at every decision we make, every consideration
that we have, in the area our workforce from recruitment to very importantly,
retention, to the programs that we might roll out, for example, continuing
education for our team members, and very importantly, focuses on the patients
that we treat.

I think we would have no credibility with our workforce, for
example, if we didn't insist that the most vulnerable populations that we treat
have the same outcomes and the same access to care that the least vulnerable
populations that we treat. So it really permeates everything that we do and
everything that we think about.

Host: Dr. Davis, can you share examples of how VCU
Health is preparing the workforce to address healthcare disparities?

Marcelle Davis, DSL: Sure, I'm happy to. But let me take
a pause right there and say, Cheryl, now do you understand why I say that Dr.
Levy is brilliant?

Host: Yes. Okay.

Marcelle Davis, DSL: So the DEI team, quite honestly,
we're leading many initiatives that prepare our workforce to identify and
address health disparities. The foundation for several of these initiatives
really is education because that gives us the opportunity to learn from one
another. So some examples, of the things we're doing; every month we host a
live tribute month program to honor and celebrate the tribute for that
particular month. For example, Black History Month, Women's History Month, and
this month we've got Pride and we've got Caribbean American Heritage Month, and
those tribute month programs typically have a keynote speaker or a panel
presentation with content that is designed to challenge our thinking and really
zero in on the importance of equity in healthcare.

We also host D.I.R.E Conversations. D.I.R.E is an acronym that
stands for diversity, inclusion, restoration and equity, and the goal is to
have honest dialogue with each other about our lived experiences and what's
happening in our communities because we know that what happens in our
communities, you know, we bring it into the workplace.

Another initiative that we recently launched is called
Conversation Cafe, and that is an informal welcoming program for all VCU Health
System team members that offers team members opportunities to explore various
dialects and expressions of our region through group conversations on a variety
of topics. And there is so much more that I can share, but these are just some
of the key initiatives that are grounded in education.

Marlon Levy, MD, MBA: Dr. Davis, would you let me add to
this very nice list? I would be remiss if I didn't call out our Massey Cancer
Center, which by the way yesterday, just was able to officially declare its
designation as a comprehensive cancer center, the second in Virginia and the
54th in the nation. I think what really stands out about Massey Cancer Center,
is its very intentional, very deliberate focus on vulnerable populations on
making sure that our most vulnerable have access to the most advanced cancer
care clinical trials. And frankly, the dialogue that our leader of Massey
Cancer Center, Dr. Robert Winn, who I hope you'll have on one of your podcasts,
has had in reaching out to, for example, the faith community, and other
populations, who might be disadvantaged. So, I think it's just really important
to mention.

Host: That's great. That's great. Now, both of you have
covered a lot of information today. Is there anything else that you would like
to add and I start with you again, Dr. Levy.

Marlon Levy, MD, MBA: Well, we've said a lot and could
talk a lot longer. I'm just deeply grateful for your interest in this area and
for your partnership with Dr. Davis, who is simply wonderful and makes us all
better.

Host: All right, Dr. Davis, you get the closing
thoughts.

Marcelle Davis, DSL: Cheryl, thank you. And Dr. Levy, it
really is a pleasure being a servant leader in our organization. It gives me
great pride to get up every single day and serve our patients, and serve our
team members who serve our patients and truly systemic racism and healthcare
could mean life or death for our patients, and I am so proud to be a part of a
health system with leaders who, quite honestly are not afraid to have difficult
conversations related to race, ethnicity, healthcare, and all the other
dimensions of diversity.

It truly is a reflection of our philosophy of holistic care,
which is to treat and care for the entire person.

Host: As we close our podcast, I just want to reiterate
VCU Health's mission. It is quote, to preserve and restore health for all
people of Virginia and beyond, through innovation and service, research and
education. A big thank you to our guests today, Dr. Marcelle Davis and Dr.
Marlon Levy for putting that mission at the center of what you do. Thanks so
much to both of you.

Marcelle Davis, DSL: Thank you so much, Cheryl.

Marlon Levy, MD, MBA: It's a pleasure, Cheryl.

Host: Now to learn more about VCU Health and its
commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, go to VCUHealth.org/dei. That's
VCUHealth.org/dei. To listen to other podcasts from VCU Health, visit VCUHealth.org/podcast.
This is Healthy with VCU Health. I'm Cheryl Martin.