Good afternoon. I'm excited to be here today. My name is Gary Stewart. I am the chair of the inaugural AOFAS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee. I would like to thank the board and the foundation for helping support this endeavor. I also have some other hats that I wear. I am the director of the Resurgence Foot and Ankle Center in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm also chief of the Division of Foot and Ankle with Wellstar Orthopedics. I have the best residents. I hope I see some of them out there. But most importantly right now, I would like to talk about the hard work that your AOFAS Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee has done. One of the things is this Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Forum, which this is in our inaugural forum, and we hope to do this every year. But your committee has been doing lots of work. I also want to thank the committee in general and our staff liaison, Elaine Layton. Some of the things we've done, number one, we've started working with Nth Dimensions. For those of you who don't know, Nth Dimensions is the number one primary pipeline program for underrepresented minorities and women to enter and support and successfully complete very competitive fields like ours, orthopedics, dermatology, radiology. We partnered with them, which we thought was an easy get, in order to expose underrepresented minorities and women to our field, which is part of our charge as your DEI committee. In order to get our AOFAS society to at least look like our society in general, as well as to educate you, as you've seen some of our education slides and education poster boards as you've gone to the paper sessions, just so that we could better provide care to our patients. We've also sponsored an Nth Dimension scholar, which our incoming president put up there, Alexis Limon. She was with me this summer, and we won third place for our research at the National Medical Association meeting. We've conducted two bio skills in which we had up to 60 medical students and some college students become involved and put some hands on foot and ankle with saw bones, plate screws, fusions, bunion procedures, you name it. We had eight stations, and it was absolutely wonderful. Each time I do it, I feel like we learn just as much from them as they learn from us and hopefully will become more interested in our specialty. We have another one October 22nd at Charles Drew. If you're in Los Angeles, please volunteer and help be one of the faculty. Many of you already know we have a book club called On the Same Page, book slash journal club. We've already had two successful, we're holding them quarterly. We have another one on October 12th in which we are partnering with Ruth Jackson, and we're discussing allyship and as well the chairman of orthopedics at Emory and his three daughters who are orthopedic residents will be discussing some issues there. We have our other one December 7th. We've done podcasts, and we encourage you to fill out your demographics for the AOFAS website because we need to know who we are, and of course visually we can kind of gather, but we're scientists, right? We want data, and so we want to know who we are so that we can become who we would like to be and better be able to serve our society. So without much more ado, we have a lot more work to do, and there are a lot more things that we have coming through the pipeline, and we need all your support, and I'd like to thank you just in general for your support because I believe it's our ethical and moral obligation, you know, to do this in order to provide better care to our patients. I firmly believe that our work in the DEI field and realm represent our oath to do no harm because if you don't, sometimes you can do some harm when you don't know. Now we all have heard of the golden rule. Well, I was at my daughter's parent-teacher conference, and they talked about the platinum rule, the golden rule is do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Well, the platinum rule basically is do unto others as they would like to be treated, and so we have to think about that in terms of our patients. We need to treat them the way they'd like to be treated or how they need to be treated, and our DEI initiative is part of that. And so without much further ado, I'd like to introduce Jacqueline Nguyen. a lawyer, land defender, environmental and indigenous rights activist. She co-founded Ginnu Collective and Indigenous Women Two Spirit led frontline resistance to protect the earth. When I first learned about Tara, I was struck by her strength, resilience, and commitment to protecting the environment and the rights of indigenous people. She has worked relentlessly on the front lines of resistance efforts, including the Line 3 oil pipeline, the Dakota Access Pipeline, reclaiming land and defunding fossil fuels. Previously, she served as an advisor to Bernie Sanders on Native American Affairs and also co-founded Not Your Mascots, an organization committed to protecting, sorry, fighting the negative stereotypes of Native Americans in sports. She's a TED speaker and recipient of the 2021. Is it the end of the day? Are you guys totally having a reception after this? Yeah, yeah, okay. Well, I'll just say, Boozhoo, Genoa, Shibuikwe, Indigenakas, Makwa, Ndudim, Kutchiching, and Tunchipa. My name is Tara Houska. I'm Bear Clan from Kutchiching First Nation. I'm really glad to be here with all of you. When I first got this call, I was like, huh, a bunch of people that work on feet. I wonder where that intersects with the environment. I mean, that's usually kind of the folks I'm talking with, but then again, the environment. I started out from a little tiny town, about... or sorry the doctors of color can relate. It was a it was an experience for sure in law school to kind of hear about people's perspectives. good about doing the right thing, you know, as if the right I'm like, hmm, okay, well, we'll see how that goes. And in law school, they do this thing, I guess they don't do that for doctors, I just asked, but they do this thing where they publicly post your grades and so at the end of the semester, I'd always, hmm, have a good one, guys, there's a reason I'm here. It's not just because I'm Native American, there's not like a Native American form that you fill out. You actually have to apply to law school like everyone else. And bring your perspectives to the classroom and to the practice of law, which, I mean, I wanted to give one, this first slide. I pulled up this picture. But I'm sitting in the classroom and I hear the Indian Child Welfare Act come up, which is the piece of legislation that was passed into law basically about the separation of Indigenous people. In any case, one of my fellow students, someone that I knew and was always friendly, talked about how they had run into tribal courts before and how they said that there was no possible way that a tribal court could ever be fair. It was like a kangaroo court and everything was just kind of wild law. And I'm sitting there right next to them like, hey, we actually do have something to offer and our communities have specific practices for a reason. We have certain ways of. maybe some of the plaintiffs or the defendants, but that doesn't change the fact. But I think it made the class all begin to think critically about why is this diverse voice so important? Because if I hadn't been. So then I went out to D.C. for a couple years. story and Wi-Fi, and then I get a really confused expression, and I'd be like, what did you just say to me? It's 2019, or whatever year it was, you know what I mean, what are you... summarily decide what the content. perspectives and millions of people. The upfront question wasn't so much about my resume and what I brought as far as a lawyer goes. It wasn't, you know, what cases have you tried, what have you worked on. Granted, I was a brand new lawyer, so they couldn't really ask quite so many questions like that. But it wasn't, you know, what's your main primary focus, what was your... Native perspective that could. Something that I'm sure you guys come across as doctors. the reality of doing so many different types of work so you know I started going to Because I started to think about diversity of tactics, you know, I was like, okay, so we've done all this and we've challenged them in courts and we've pushed through the legislation and the legislation died and failed just like are still being under threat, their children are still. out here managed to shut down this gigantic fossil fuel project. How did that all happen? a largely non-BIPOC space. Perspectives that climate change is kind of like this problem that we can just solve We've had the conferences and we've engaged in the regulatory process. like Native American activist Tara Houska says Washington football team is offensive and I was like I've never been to a protest like what are you talking about like I'm a lawyer and you just reached out to me because I'm in DC but anyway yeah I mean it's you look at okay so I don't really know much about activism I don't really know so much about this field but I'm learning about it I've got all these non BIPOC folks who have given me all this skill set and this tactic these set of tactics so now what what happens when they don't listen what happens when you've done all the things and you pull the levers and they just aren't listening so then I know about in North Dakota fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline did not expect that one to come in my career and you know I was out on the prairie for six months fighting this massive industry with a lot of Native folks El Pardo for the last seven years. Right before I came on stage I was actually You've got all these, you know, thousands of people who are there, and there's people that are locked to machines all over. That's that picture that's on the right. So I'm like walking through and checking on everyone, just kind of like checking in, how you guys doing, how's it going? And I'm seeing the anarchists with like the cool patches vest and the big boots walking side by side with like the biologists who are wearing their little like, you know, their sun hats and Birkenstocks and all of that. But they're walking side by side because they're united under a cause, right? And they, they Right, now it's not just the voices that you can kind of easily push aside, it's, no, you've got professionals who are out here, people who care about their children are out here bringing that that wealth of experience and also bringing that different perspective that yeah, okay, maybe the quote-unquote activists they're at, and it's not without growing pains, for sure. I don't think the anarchists and the biologists were just BFFs right off the bat. It was more like, okay, we're both here, cool. We're both shutting down the pipeline, this is a good day. So biodiversity is what's critical to our own survival. This is my first time apart from her so it's been really really tough. It's also my first time coming. I'll just stand for a minute, just to kind of do the stand thing before we sit and ask questions. One of the things that was really great was that Tara was really open to answering questions, and I think that this is a perfect opportunity to ask some things that you might normally not do, but I also know that it's tough to be the first person to come up to the mic and say something. I just would like to say thank you for coming. Also, thank you for kind of bringing together what we're trying to do in terms of diversity and paralleling that with how it's important in the environment to have diversity. You don't have an environment, you don't have a healthy environment, just like we wouldn't have a healthy environment if we don't have diversity. I love that. That was fantastic. I'm going to kind of ask a question from a medical perspective. What are some of the prejudices that indigenous populations face when seeing physicians, and common misconceptions regarding indigenous populations that result in barriers to appropriate medical care? While you think of that, I'm asking that in a sense because I know as an African American sometimes when I'm seeing a physician, I have a concern that maybe because my skin is brown that there may be some prejudices from the physician that I want to try to break down for the physician so that they can appropriately give me attention. I would say that as a physician, as I'm seeing someone new, I want to try to get through all of the noise so that I can help them. I would say that. I presented an emergency That doctor thinks you're a drug addict. And I was like, what? And they're like, yes, they were looking at all of your mosquito bites. And just watch, just watch, watch what's gonna happen. And then the doctor. That's what I got sent home with, right? So I was more than livid, because I got bit by a spider, right? I ended up calling their CMO, because I know I actually went, I wanted to be a physician. Yeah, you told us, yeah. Yeah, and went the other route, right? I worked in insurance for a little while, and I was like, Someone had had a talk with them about diversity and about different understandings. Because they actually, when I was like, can I keep my placenta? They were like, oh, sure. We'll put it in the freezer for you right now. We'll label it. No one will touch it. No one will touch it. And did you, the belly button too? And I was like, the belly button too. You know, like how do I make sure that my child's belly button is. Hey, thank you for an amazing presentation and an amazing symposium. My name is Daniel. I'm from Boston. One of the things we learned working at a tertiary care center during COVID is that health kind of disparities become very evident when a pandemic hits. You know, when people like Chris DiGiovanni and I worked at a COVID hospital at the convention center, I'll be honest, I spoke more Spanish than I did English. And then when you bring it back to foot and ankle, we're often seeing presentations about things like total ankle replacements and learning about what leads to complications. And many of these risk factors for complications are disproportionately borne by less enfranchised populations where things like diabetes, where smoking and other comorbidities are predominant. So if you actually translate these and use risk factors to decide who's going to get a surgery, especially an elective surgery, we're functionally saying we're going to disproportionately do them on white people. How do we digest that? How do we face that within our foot and ankle medical profession? Am I part of this? Did I do these things? Did my colleagues? It's like, no, you got a nation. Kalamazoo, Michigan. Thanks again for coming. I don't know if this is light or fair or not, but a lot of what we do is sports medicine and we do a lot of coverage of colleges, high schools, sometimes even pro teams. I guess on the surface, it looks like there's been progress in terms of naming of mascots, if you will, D.C. and Cleveland, examples that people know about. Could you comment on where you think we are and if there's progress being made and where you think it's going and what would be success? Yeah, for sure. And I can make it less light. I mean, because it's, again, one of those things where it's like, okay, well, this mascot issue, isn't it really just about feelings? And it's like, no, for me, and for many others that have been fighting this issue for decades, like, I mean, we're talking decades. Like, my grandmother went to these demonstrations. You know what I mean? It's been a while that Native folks have been fighting this stuff. It's not about feelings. It's about the real impacts of what it means when you're dehumanized. It's the reality of, okay, well, here in my perspective, I'm like this brand new lawyer out in Washington, D.C. I'd never seen sport mascots, really, because we banned them in Minnesota back in the 90s. But then I'm walking around and seeing, okay, well, here's this team called the Redskins, and everyone's wearing this gear, and going up on Capitol Hill, and all the congresspersons don't know who we are. And they ask me these really ignorant questions, like if I live in a teepee or not, because that's their only perspective of Native people. Yeah, I mean, I think we're making progress. I, when I see like the NFL end zone that says end racism and it's on the Chiefs, it's like right next to the Chiefs like big plastic drum, I'm like, oh my God, okay. You guys are, it's like going like way over your heads. You're obviously missing the point. This is really offensive. How do you not know that? Like it's 2022, how do you not know that? You know, and it does hurt my heart when I see players of color out there wearing that stuff and defending those names and stuff like that. I think we're to the point of realizing that. And the whole room looked like they were gonna jump him. So I was like, no, no, no, we're not trying to like hurt the speakers today. He just has a lot more healing to do in his healing journey. Yeah, but I think we're getting there with the overt examples, but it's the kind of more covert. the ignorance on Capitol Hill, but then the... Yes, hello, Caitlin Neary, Boise, Idaho. Wonderful talking to you back here. I'm sorry I held you up. No, just incredible presentation, so impressive, inspiring. Thank you for coming and being here. You've already done obviously a lot to protect the environment, to protect the rights of the indigenous people. Where do you see your work headed in the future? What's coming next? What goals do you have and how can we help? I started to do quite a bit of land back work. It's serious out there, it's very serious. You learn about all these like humble moments where it's like 40 below zero and you have to learn how to start a fire, right? Hello, I'm Jeff Johnson from St. Louis, Missouri. And as a fellow native Minnesotan, thank you so much for being here. And thank you for all the things that you're doing for our state. My question is about kind of the political, the current political landscape and what's being done nationally. I mean, I was, I was excited to see Deb Haaland, the first Native American, you know, confirmed as the Secretary of the Interior. And from your perspective, has that made a difference and a change? What do you think is going to be happening from her influence in that position? Hi, so my name's Uzo Waquiba. I'm one of Dr. Stewart's residents at Atlanta Medical Center. I asked my question for you is how do you kind of take care of yourself mentally and emotionally as you embark on this journey and you continue this fight? I'm sure you encounter a lot of people who are all on the spectrum in terms of people who are there with you and support you and are there to fight with you. And then I'm sure you encounter people who don't care about these issues. And just like throughout all of those experiences, like what are your ways of kind of just taking care of yourself? Yeah, I'm thinking about the, you know, actually the worst folks I've encountered have been, or at least the most aggressive folks, have been sports fans. You wouldn't think that. You know, the Pipeliners are, they're their own thing and they get, it's, I'm not going to say that it's not scary. a whole bunch of security, I think those are. Sports fans are usually a whole different ball of wax. I mean they're like the kind of folks that are trying to One, I think that we should stop making statues. I mean that's, that's part of the problem, honestly. the titles and like all the. If it's like the little change of, hey, you're dressing up as me, please stop. Like literally, please stop. And they're like, what are you talking about? And I'm like, oh my God. less of this overwhelming, I have to get this done, I have to beat this pipeline. And that someone eventually, at some point, or initially at some point, decided to start beating their head against that wall. That was that. That was the story. I mean, I hardly remember learning anything, yeah. Yeah, no, I mean, so I grew up in a border town. kind of thing, like moving on, right? And then my classmates being like, but you're here? And I'm like, I'm here, we're not all dead. We're still here, actually, there's quite a few of us. We're actually everywhere, but. And then one of the most formative education moments, I think, for my classmates, my young classmates, being us going and visiting this center that used to host a lot of groups called the Grand Mountains. Kind of bad, I think and it was like, yes, it was kind of bad. Actually, it was kind of really bad there used to be a lot more of us I Think that education I can't tell you how many medical articles I get sent medical articles I get sent by people that are like, did you know that the COVID vaccine is doing this to be and I'm like, Oh, my God, you do not have a move on to our reception after this last little part. So in terms of education, if you could just talk a little bit more about, I don't wanna get into too much politics, but the need to tell the truth in education. Too much politics, whatever could you be, no, I'm just kidding. You can, if you want to. Yeah, no, the need to tell the truth, it's, I mean, it's, convincing someone that the sky is not blue when the sky is blue is like, it's such a wild thing to see, right? And it's, the iterations of that, the ripples of that are so felt by so many different. mom seriously and she's like it doesn't really look like it looks like they're beating up you and I'm like that's exactly what's happening and she was like I mean I just don't understand why art like I think it's like you know Jim or whatever like the local guy is she's like Jim would not lie to us I'm like mom he has a script trust me it's not Jim's decision to tell the story like he's telling the story someone else told him to tell down to my poor mother down to you know the the reality of plastics right which is like over 90% of plastic in the United States it's not recycled it's actually burned we just put it in that bin and they've convinced us that putting in that bin means it's recycled that's not the truth she's like no our garbage man would not lie to me he takes that away I know that it's being recycled and then she like actually has him track it down the garbage man like comes to and he's like they don't recycle it they burn it in this place down in like way down in southern Minnesota and my mom's like we just both can't believe it I mean we're thinking about writing a letter I'm like maybe write a few letters I mean it's it's like a real thing but like the critical importance of telling the truth is for the benefit of all like we don't progress and we don't Thank you for coming, this was wonderful. Thank you all for staying. Don't forget about the reception. This has been very fun, I hope to do more of it. Thank you. So thank you everybody for attending. This was an amazing symposium. I thank Tara, I thank the committee, the DEI committee, and I thank the audience for taking the time. Now we have the DEI reception. It'll be in the urban terrace on the third floor. So you're on the second floor right now, you'll go up. The program starts tomorrow at 7 a.m. And lastly we do want to thank Striker for supporting this important initiative It's it's companies like them that are going to make initiatives like this sustainable And so we thank them for for sharing the vision of the AOFAS

Gary Stewart

AOFAS Diversity

Equity

Inclusion Committee

Nth Dimensions

underrepresented minorities

orthopedics

Jacqueline Nguyen

environmental activist

Ginnu Collective