FSMB Launches Task Force on Health Equity and Medical Regulation

WASHINGTON, D.C. (March 31, 2021) The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) has launched the Task Force on Health Equity and Medical Regulation. Under the leadership of FSMB Chair Cheryl Walker-McGill, MD, MBA, the ad hoc Task Force will evaluate education and training programs to assist state medical and osteopathic boards in identifying opportunities for understanding and addressing systemic racism, implicit bias, and health inequity in medical regulation and patient care. 

“The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare how devastating the issue of health inequity can be for communities of color and underserved populations,” said Cheryl Walker-McGill, MD, MBA, Chair of the FSMB Task Force on Health Equity and Medical Regulation. “Over the coming months, the Task Force will seek to understand what medical regulators can do to address health inequities and implicit bias and evaluate what processes need to change to make licensing, discipline and regulation more equitable.”

“The FSMB is committed to studying the impact that systematic racism and health inequities have on medical regulation, and working with our member state medical boards to find solutions to address it,” said Humayun J. Chaudhry, DO, MACP, President and CEO of the FSMB. “We are encouraged by the efforts already underway at a number of our member boards to review policies and procedures where implicit bias or inequities may exist and to take action to make them more fair.”

In recent months, the FSMB and state medical boards have increased their efforts to raise awareness about how disparities are impacting health care quality and delivery. In January, the FSMB hosted a symposium on “Health Equity and Medical Regulation: How Disparities are Impacting U.S. Health Care Quality and Delivery and Why it Matters.” The symposium featured keynote speeches by Marc Morial, JD, President and Chief Executive Officer of the National Urban League, and former FDA Commissioner Mark McClellan, MD, PhD, Director of the Robert J. Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University.

The launch of the ad hoc Task Force on Health Equity and Medical Regulation will help to advance the FSMB’s work on these issues by bringing together leaders from the U.S. and international medical regulatory communities and experts in bioethics. The Task Force is charged with: 

• Reviewing literature on implicit bias, systematic racism and health equity in medical regulation

• Identifying current state medical board implicit bias initiatives

• Directing efforts for the creation of a public-facing platform to provide educational resources for addressing implicit bias in medical licensing, discipline and regulation

• Engaging with key stakeholders (professional medical associations, academia, government, and agencies) to ensure that a state regulatory perspective is part of the larger discussion on these issues

Members of the ad hoc Task Force on Health Equity and Medical Regulation 

• Cheryl L. Walker-McGill, MD, MBA (Task Force Chair, FSMB Chair)
• Humayun J. Chaudhry, DO, MACP (FSMB President and CEO)
• Marlon I. Brown (Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs) 
• Jeffrey D. Carter, MD (FSMB Board of Directors and Missouri Board of Registration for the Healing Arts)
• Diana Currie, MD (Washington Medical Commission)
• Kimberly Gaedeke (Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs)
• Anna Z. Hayden, DO (FSMB Board of Directors, Florida Board of Osteopathic Medicine)
• Michaux R. Kilpatrick, MD, PhD (North Carolina Medical Board) 
• James L. Sabin, MD (Harvard Medical School Center for Bioethics)
• Kenneth B. Simons, MD (FSMB Chair-elect)  
• Katie L. Templeton, JD (FSMB Board of Directors, Oklahoma State Board of Osteopathic Examiners)
• Sarvam P. TerKonda, MD (FSMB Board of Directors, Florida Board of Medicine)
• Curtis James Walker, MD, MBChB (Chair, Medical Council of New Zealand)

About the Federation of State Medical Boards

The Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB) is a national non-profit organization representing all medical boards within the United States and its territories that license and discipline allopathic and osteopathic physicians and, in some jurisdictions, other health care professionals. The FSMB serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best practices. To learn more about FSMB, visit www.fsmb.org. You can also follow FSMB on Twitter (@theFSMB).

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