EDI survey: June 16–July 7
Your voice matters. Share your feedback and help shape a more equitable culture of medicine in BC. Learn more.
Our commitment to inclusion
Ensuring that Doctors of BC reflects the diversity of our physician members and the patients they care for is a pillar of our strategic plan. We also support physicians across the province in their continuous efforts to make BC’s health care system equitable and inclusive for those who work in it and for the diverse range of patients they treat.
Guiding principles
We recognize that meeting our commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion is a continuous journey that requires ongoing action and accountability. We want to ensure that our actions now and in the future are guided by key principles that provide direction and consistency in how we approach challenges and opportunities that arise along this journey.
Diversity and representation
The association strives to reflect the diverse population of physicians we serve, which includes opportunities for continuous and meaningful contribution from underrepresented groups.
Equity and fairness
We are making reasonable efforts to provide members with the support needed to access the same opportunities to participate in the association without barriers based on who they are.
Inclusion and belonging
We not only accept the diversity of our membership, but that we embrace it, and members—particularly those that currently feel left out—feel supported in their participation and empowered to contribute to the association.
Courage and humility
We commit to an ongoing journey to remove barriers and creating an inclusive environment for our members. This involves humbly acknowledging that we do not have all the answers, and that sometimes we will make mistakes that we need to learn from and address.
Learning and listening
We make sincere efforts to educate ourselves, both as a group and individuals, on the challenges to incorporating diversity and inclusion in our organization, including actively listening to and understanding those that face barriers to participation.
Explore more. Read our Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Vision Statement.
IDEA committee
Our Inclusion, Diversity, and Equity Advisory (IDEA) Committee provides advice to the Board and the Association on EDI-related issues affecting Doctors of BC governance, members, and the profession at large. The committee also provides strategic input on and supports the implementation of the Board’s EDI goals and initiatives.
The IDEA Committee is comprised of:
- Dr Fatmah Alzahrani
- Dr Valerie Ehasoo
- Dr Maria Hubinette
- Dr Jennifer Jeans
- Dr Jatinder Khatra
- Dr Faisal Khosa (Chair)
- Dr Gilbert Lam
- Elsie Wang (Medical Student)
- Dr Charlotte Yong-Hing
EDI work
Current work
Physician EDI Engagement Plan
Guided by the IDEA Committee, we have launched a comprehensive engagement plan to gather insights from physicians across BC to better understand and address experiences with systemic barriers to equity in the medical profession.
- Phase 1: Listening sessions and interviews: In winter 2025, 25 listening sessions and 29 individual interviews were held with Indigenous and racialized physicians, women, gender-diverse and 2SLGBTQIA+ physicians, international medical graduates, physicians with disabilities, rural and remote physicians, physicians with caregiving responsibilities, and physicians from diverse faith backgrounds across BC.
- Phase 2: EDI Survey: Building on insights from phase 1, this survey asks demographic questions, questions about daily work and career trajectory, experiences with friction within the health system, and reflections on how strengths, resilience, and survival strategies have nurtured physicians’ paths and communities. Key findings will be shared with members, Doctors of BC’s Board, the Joint Collaborative Committees, and other health system partners.
Ongoing work
- The Physician Health Program hosts a virtual peer support group for physicians who are Black, Indigenous, and people of colour (BIPOC).
- We continue to use multiple channels to communicate committee opportunities and encourage applications from all members in an ongoing effort to ensure our committees reflect the rich diversity of our membership.
- We are evaluating past EDI training delivered to members serving on our governance bodies to determine next steps in potentially providing this training again.
Key accomplishments
Barrier assessment
In 2019, Doctors of BC conducted broad member engagement with more than 1,400 members through surveys, focus groups, and interviews to identify barriers to diversity and inclusion in our governance bodies. We used this information to create the Doctors of BC Diversity and Inclusion Barrier Assessment Report, which contains 57 recommendations to improve diversity and inclusion within our governance bodies. All these recommendations have been acted on, and four are currently being implemented. For a summary of the recommendations and a sense of how they relate to one another, please see the summary.
Gender Equity in the Medical Profession
Doctors of BC’s 2023 policy statement on Gender Equity in the Medical Profession makes a number of recommendations on how the BC Ministry of Health, health authorities, other physician employers, and medical schools can improve gender equity. The statement also includes commitments by Doctors of BC to support this work.
Diversity in Governance
In our 2022 Member Demographic Report, we compared the demographic makeup of our membership population to that of our governance bodies to measure how we’re doing in our efforts to increase the diversity and inclusivity of those governance bodies.