If there is one take away Briana Snyder, Ph.D. has found during her time as a board certified psychiatric mental health nurse and educator, it’s that you become a stronger health care provider when you approach everyone with an open mind. 

Through the Diversity & Inclusion Faculty Fellows (DIFF) program, Snyder is creating a course on health equity for graduate students in the Department of Nursing’s entry-level Master of Science (ELMS) program in the College of Health Professions.

Snyder’s DIFF project, Creating a Graduate-Level Diversity and Health Equity Course: Promoting Cultural Humility and Fostering a Commitment to Health Advocacy Among Future Healthcare Providers, is the result of 15 years of experience as a nurse and her passion for equity in health care.

Her goal for the course is to introduce students to health equity and existing inequities, provide a baseline for understanding policy and discuss how future health care professionals can advocate for their patients at the bedside and beyond.

“Diversity and equity in health care has always been a passion of mine,” she says. “You can’t walk into a health care facility without running into someone who is different from you. It’s important for students to see that as a strength, and not something to be fearful of.” 

Before joining the 2024-2025 DIFF cohort, Snyder noticed an opportunity to carve out space out for a nursing-specific elective for graduate students in the ELMS program. One focused on diversity, equity and inclusion did not yet exist.

Snyder’s interest in health care DE&I-specific research stems in part from her experience teaching the Diversity and Social Justice in Healthcare course to undergraduate students. The course highlights the inequity marginalized groups face and guides students to question what changes can be made. 

When she had the opportunity to teach the course abroad for two summers with TU’s Study Abroad & Away Office, Snyder had to adapt her teaching and understanding of DE&I in health care to an international landscape, discussing the different health care systems in the U.S. and Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

“To say teaching this course abroad was transformational is an understatement. It’s an experience you can’t teach unless you’re fully immersed in the culture of the host country,” she says. “Seeing the differences in the health care systems opens your eyes to what we’re maybe not doing the best with here in the U.S. and where there’s more room for growth.”

Having the experience of teaching Diversity and Social Justice in Healthcare to TU students abroad left a desire in Snyder to someday teach the course she developed through DIFF internationally and not only to nursing students.

Snyder is hopeful that students across disciplines will choose to take the course as an elective to make in-class discussions even more realistic and enriching.

“Health care is interprofessional,” she says. “There’s no way around it. You have to collaborate with everybody and really, that’s ideal because when teams are diverse, the patient has the best outcomes.” 

Department of Nursing chairperson, Hyunjeong Park, Ph.D, understands how essential the infusion of DE&I teachings are for TU's future health professionals to provide culturally competent care in the future.

“Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion has been a core focus across all nursing courses within the department. Faculty members are keenly aware of the growing importance of preparing students for a diverse healthcare environment," Park says, "As our student body becomes increasingly diverse and the patients they will care for in the future are more varied, it is essential that our faculty integrate DE&I principles into their teaching."

When professionals seek to understand experiences outside of their own with compassion and an open mind, they will be able to provide better, personalized care to those they are called on to support.

Programs like DIFF at TU support faculty members’ research on critical issues within diversity, equity and inclusion and help them contribute to creating tangible resources for students to question and learn from.

“You’re not going to know everything,” Snyder says. “But there are ways you can constantly learn, to provide good care, and to advocate for your patients.”