On May 23 from 3:30-5 p.m. EDT, the  DDW® Diversity Symposium: Unique Patient Populations with GI Diseases Experiencing Barriers to Care will focus on patients with gastrointestinal diseases that are marginalized, or find specific challenges due to their disease and/or minority population they belong to. Each speaker will share their experiences, and provide ways to approach and overcome them that will be of great benefit to attendees that may need guidance in this area.

At the completion of the activity, participants should be able to:

• Challenge surgeon and gastroenterologists understanding of LGBT health concerns.
• Realize the cultural barriers to health care and ways to overcome them.
• Implement ways to improve our communication with diverse patient populations in everyday patient care.

Jointly sponsored by the four sponsoring societies and hosted by SSAT, the symposium will be directly followed by continuing conversations at 5 p.m. EDT. This block is designed to offer attendees an opportunity to network and participate in dynamic discussion in an informal, small-group virtual atmosphere. The post-session conversation will begin with five minutes of introductions, followed by an informal thirty minutes of chat, and another ten minutes of networking to conclude. Both the symposium and the small-group networking opportunity are included in the cost of registration.

Moderated by Matthew Walsh, MD, and Aline Charabaty, MD, the following topics will be covered:

Additional Programming

With the DDW Health Care Delivery, Disparities and Quality Track you can easily identify additional education relating to diversity, equity and inclusion. Use the DDW Online Planner and DDW Online Preliminary Program to view the high-level agenda. You will also be able to browse sessions and ePosters by track in the DDW Virtual™ platform.