The University of Colorado Department of Family Medicine (DFM) proudly announces the appointment of Cleveland Piggott, MD, MPH as the department's Vice Chair for Diversity, Health Equity, and Inclusion.

DFM Chair Frank deGruy made it official with these moving words:

"All of you know that this department places a high priority on the principles of diversity, health equity, and inclusion. To that end, we have had a Director of Diversity and Health Equity in this department—Cleveland Piggott, MD, MPH. Cleveland has done a magnificent job in raising our levels of diversity, equity, and inclusiveness across all our mission areas. He has done much for us in this department, and is increasingly important to the School of Medicine’s and the campus’ efforts.

Today I am pleased to announce that Cleveland Piggott, MD, MPH has been made the department’s Vice Chair for Diversity, Health Equity, and Inclusion.

Please join me in welcoming Cleveland to this critically important position."

With a new frontier of vital work laid out before him, Dr. Piggott says he is ready to lead the department into a new future and culture that highlights the value of organizational focus on diversity, health equity, and inclusion.

"The DFM's mission is to make people healthier and the diversity and health equity program's goal has been to make sure EVERYONE is healthier. We do that by taking an equity approach to everything we do, increasing our diversity, and making sure everyone feels included. We also do this by taking an anti-oppression and anti-racism lens to our policies and looking inward at how we got here.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) is truly everyone's job, but we need to be strategic and smart with our limited resources and prioritize efforts that have the most impact and align with our goals and passions. For too long, organizations have been reactive to DEI problems or thought of it as too big of an issue.

With my new role, the Department is making a clear statement that we WILL be proactive in our DEI efforts, we CAN make a difference when it comes to health equity in our community, and this truly is a CORE value.

My partner in this work, Dionisia de la Cerda and I have been successful in this work in large part because of building relationships. However, medicine is still very hierarchical, and this title allows our voices and values to be at tables where decisions are made.I'm truly grateful for the Department putting that trust in me and excited about the work we'll be doing together.

This is truly a team effort. We will fail if we don't have all hands on deck, still I'm excited and hopeful. Three years ago, our campus had just one Vice Chair (or equivalent) for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Now, I'm one of a growing handful, and you're seeing this trend nationally. Whether these positions will be given the resources and authority they need to be successful is yet to be seen.

As Sam Cooke sang in 1964  "it's been a long, long time coming, but I know a change gonna come".

Thanks for being part of the change."