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Health Equity Fellowship

The Parkland Health Equity fellowship is a unique launchpad for future clinical leaders who are committed to improving care for the underserved.

We are looking for individuals who are brimming with ideas, and who are eager to use the best available evidence to identify and evaluate solutions for the systematic improvement of health and health care.

The Health Equity Fellowship at Parkland and UT Southwestern prepares physicians to lead transformation in a value-based healthcare system focused on equitable outcomes. This two-year program provides immersive training in care delivery innovation, population health, and health equity within the safety-net setting. Designed for physicians who have completed residency training, the fellowship equips participants to understand and address the root causes of healthcare inequities while developing the skills needed to drive meaningful, system-wide change. We invite those committed to advancing health equity to explore the fellowship and apply.

  • Health Equity Didactics

    Fellows will complete a series of didactics and seminars tailored to their interest and background. Foundational topics such as academic writing, public speaking, the healthcare financing system and clinical innovation in safety-nets will be recurring with additional topics added as needed. Recent didactics include:

    • Health Policy, Health Systems & Safety Nets by Fred Cerise, MD
    • Healthcare Innovation: Principles of Health Equity by Kavita P. Bhavan, MD, MHS, FIDSA
    • Food as Medicine by Jaclyn Albin, MD
    • Hospital at Home by Monal Shah, MD and Alissa Tran, PharmD, BCCCP
    • Care for the Homeless by Donna Persaud, MD, MBA
    • Ethics and Surrogate Decision Making for Unrepresented Patients by Jennifer Wimberly, MD, MA, HEC-C
    • Health-Related Social Needs by Sheryl Mathew, PhD, LCSW
    • Pulmonary Disparities and Language Concordant Care by Govind Krishnan, MD
    • Maternal Health Disparities by Robert Martin, MD
    • Data Science/Informatics: Business Intelligence (BI) and the Future of AI by Michael Harms, MSBA and Virali Soni, MBA
    • Cardiovascular Disparities by Sandeep Das, MD, MPH
    • Value Based Initiatives in a Safety Net System by Kristin Alvarez, PharmD

    In addition, fellows can take advantage of other classwork to meet their training needs, including statistical methods and epidemiology, either locally or through other institutions.

  • Literature Evaluation

    A key part of producing strong research will be learning from published literature. Fellows will critically review published articles and present in a variety of informal settings to our team while learning about datasets, methods and topics of interest.

  • Parkland Health Equity Symposium

    Parkland Health will host an annual Health Equity Symposium each fall. This will be a forum to present current fellows’ work, invite nationally recognized leaders in health equity, and learn about other work in health equity and care delivery innovation across Parkland, UT Southwestern and the wider community.

  • National Conferences

    Fellows will present their work at least once a year at a variety of national conferences such as America’s Essential Hospitals annual meetings, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement Forum, the Academy Health Annual Research Meeting and the Society for General Internal Medicine annual meeting.

  • Fellowship Team

    The faculty and staff at the Center for Innovation and Value at Parkland are available to support fellows. Data and analytic resources are available through the Research and Scholarship Section in the Division of General Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern.

    • Embedded Operational Partnership: Partner directly with clinical and community stakeholders to redesign care models improving outcomes and equity.
    • Education as a Strategic Lever: Integrate learners into active improvement work, ensuring educational efforts yield operational benefits.
    • Portfolio of Innovation Initiatives: Leads project like uninsured care redesign and value-based care pilots serving as learning environments.
    • Sustainable Model for Equity: Align education with institutional goals to scale equity-focused innovation into clinical practice sustainably.
  • Clinical Time

    Fellows will be expected to maintain a small amount of clinical effort during their two years to mature as clinicians and as a window into ongoing issues in clinical care.

  • Application Guidelines

    We will accept up to two fellows per year. Applications are open from May 1 until July 31. Virtual interviews will be conducted during August and September. In-person interviews will continue in October, and acceptances will be communicated by early November.

    Please Note: Fellowships will begin July 2027 until June 2029.

    All documents below must be sent to IMHealthEquity@utsouthwestern.edu:

    • Curriculum vitae
    • Letter of Interest (no more than two pages)
    • Two Letters of Recommendation

Contact Us

Email us at IMHealthEquity@utsouthwestern.edu

Arthur S. Hong, M.D.

Program Director

Jasmine Weiland

GME Program Coordinator I

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