Physician, heal thyself of your white privilege!
Or answer to former Madison Alder Shiva!
From: Office of the Dean, School of Medicine & Public Health, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Sent: Monday 08-30-21
Subject: Leadership announcement: Associate Dean for Diversity and Equity Transformation
Dear colleagues,
I am excited to share news about our school’s next step for diversity and equity transformation. Beginning October 11, 2021, Shiva Bidar-Sielaff, MA, CDM, UW Health Vice President for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, will expand the scope of her work to also become the inaugural Associate Dean for Diversity and Equity Transformation for our school. In doing so, Shiva will be leading an integrative effort to embed equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racism as imperatives in all of our missions.
This appointment also establishes a multi-functional SMPH Office of Diversity and Equity Transformation that will be integrated with the existing UW Health Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. This will facilitate alignment and progress in areas such as learning and education, faculty and staff support, equity in systems, policies and processes, support for basic science departments and their training programs, and programmatic accountability. Additional resources, including funding and personnel, will be dedicated to this critical effort. Ultimately, this work will involve and engage everyone in SMPH as we seek to become an anti-racist organization. …
Shiva is an established leader and effective champion for advancing equity and diversity at the individual, organizational and community levels. She brings to her work with diverse communities a gift for language … and a remarkable ability to spark transformational change. Her community engagement is centered on addressing racism and discrimination as barriers to health and health equity. …
In 1997, she joined UW Health to establish the medical interpretation services program, which is now recognized as a national model. She became director of community partnerships for UW Health, and then UW Health Chief Diversity Officer. In 2020 her role was elevated to a Vice President position. She served as a former alder on the City of Madison Common Council … [Where she voted to expel police from Madison’s troubled public schools.] Shiva’s accolades include being named as a 2019-20 UW–Madison Outstanding Woman of Color. …
Sincerely,
Robert N. Golden, MD
Dean, School of Medicine and Public Health
Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Blaska’s Bottom Line: Did you find all 10 uses of the word “equity“? This social scientist explains:
Equity is supposed to require arranging equal outcomes for each group. (… but only those with political clout.) That means treating some people differently than others. Asians on the whole are too successful, so they have to be sent to the back of the higher-education bus, under this system. Equity demands that instruction and grading be changed so that outcomes by groups won’t be unequal.
That Equity should be enforced in MEDICINE should keep you awake at night.
Education
Blaska Policy Werkes 
https://www.cdc.gov/healthcommunication/Preferred_Terms.html
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Favoring commercial airline pilots according to minority and grievance status instead of skill and seniority in the name of equity has merit, si?
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Whoa… As a devotee of Dan Gryder and Juan Brown, (GA aircrash blog sites) and many & varied sites reporting commercial crashes, (& ATC convos), your comment scares me to… death. Never thought about that !
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I don’t care if the person operating on me or piloting the plane I’m on is green or purple, man or woman. ALL I care about is that they’re capable.
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From the link above:
“Instead of this…
Inmate
Prisoner
Convict/ex-convict
Offender
Criminal
Parolee
Detainee
Try this…
People/persons who are incarcerated or detained (often used for shorter jail stays or youth in detention facilities)
Partner/child of an incarcerated person
Persons in pre-trial or with charge
People who were formerly incarcerated
Persons on parole or probation
Non-US citizens (or immigrants) in immigration detention facilities
People in immigration detention facilities”
No!
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Here’s how concerned I was.
When I commenced an open records lawsuit against a UW Medical School entity in Dane County Circuit Court after events occurring in 2016, I eventually switched my health insurance from UW Health to DeanCare HMO.
That’s because I decided the highly-placed UW Medical School Oversight and Advisory Committee members and staff who control the committee were not happy with me. Several of those committee members are organizationally close to Dean Golden
(The Oversight and Advisory Committee controls a large portion of a roughly $400 million public health endowment fund. Its initial purpose was to advance population health in Wisconsin. Since its inception, however, the focus has changed to addressing health equity — a significant change.)
I ultimately won the public interest lawsuit, Wymore v. OAC.
Here is an op-ed the Wisconsin State Journal published after the court found in my favor. It details some of the shortcomings of the “health equity” emphasis:
https://madison.com/wsj/opinion/column/kevin-wymore-uws-386m-health-fund-shouldn-t-be-secret/article_e126534e-8597-5c00-9a6f-163e4dd0fcd5.html
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I work on a grant program at the state and we always provide grant comments to the public. I’m glad that you won that lawsuit. All grants should be open records.
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The state open records law strongly favors openness, of course, and the Circuit Court Judge stated in her ruling, “Public disclosure will better allow the public to address whether the correct proposals are funded and ensure there are no improper conflicts. In this (2016) grant cycle alone, OAC funded two projects that were not as highly rated as others, and those two (lower-rated) projects were associated with (Medical School) OAC committee members. Release of reviewer comments can help counteract any suggestions of bias or favoritism.”
The funded grants were all for $1 million each, so this involved no small fiscal potatoes.
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Looks awfully white.
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What do you mean, Looks awfully white? Do you mean that Bidar looks white?
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Born in Iran.
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The medical school just named an Iranian woman as their “Associate Dean for Diversity and Equity Transformation”, citing her as a ” 2019-20 UW–Madison Outstanding Woman of Color”? Iranians are one of the source types for the term “Caucasian”, and the word “Iranian” is derived from the word “Aryan”. So only Western Europeans are “colorless”?
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Great now all graduates of this school will have an asterisk next to their name.
Prospective employers will have to figure out on their own if the person has competence vs being an equity graduate.
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Not to mention, their patients.
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The fact that they hired someone like Shiva Bidar for a leadership position cements my decision never to use them as my healthcare provider.
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Having UW Health as my “healthcare provider” last year cemented my decision to never ( again) use them as my healthcare provider. Honestly they were great for the 2 relatively minor knee surgeries I had but very tough to get through the administrative fat to see a nurse or actual doctor for more mundane things.
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I used UW years ago. Found the docs to be cold and snooty, as in “How dare you question my authority.” Maybe others have different experiences, but this was mine.
Switched over to a new plan and have never looked back. Knowing that someone like Bidar can be given a leadership position reinforces my opinion of them.
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This is very interesting. I never thought that equity could actually threaten the level of care that patients may receive or that requirements may alter to allow for more people of color to enter the profession. I would like to think that that wouldn’t happen in a medical institution. If it does, that would be wrong. I always thought that it meant that the UW would change it’s practices to encourage more diversity on staff.
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Elroy should remove its sign on Hwy. 82 honoring former governor Tommy Thompson. Comrade Thompson should be forgotten. If he is remembered, it should be for his true color, Red.
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Do you realize how stupid your comment is? Tommy Thompson is a communist? !!! Disagree as you will but ground it in some semblance of argument, not invective.
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Wow! I fear for my old age.
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There are many adjectives to describe the buzzwords contained in this letter from UW School of Medicine. Try this one: autocratic bull excrement.
Works for me.
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The UW Medical School has a Dean with an MA degree? Wow – not a bad gig? Friends in high places I guess.
I don’t know anything about Dr. Golden but with judgement like that, I wouldn’t let him walk my dog.
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