Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity

We are committed to cultivating, fostering, and preserving a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Our company is our people. The AMO culture is built by the differences, life experiences, knowledge, skills, creativity, unique identities, capabilities, and talents that each team member brings to the table. The things that make us human represent the core ingredients of our most valuable assets: our culture, values, and reputation as a company.  

“AMO's mission affects thousands of students globally. Nearly 4,000 students from all over the world have joined us for educational experiences all over the United States. Through these experiences our students acculturate with patients and healthcare providers in new settings. We see firsthand the benefits of diversity in healthcare and the benefits of being inclusive of all backgrounds and equitable in practices. Patient outcomes are driven by diversity, inclusivity, and equity. Therefore, not only is diversity, equity, and inclusion mission critical to our team, but also to our stakeholders. It is the reason our business exists.”

Kyle Swinsky, CEO

Our Commitment

AMO’s initiatives are applicable but not limited to our racial and gender practices and policies, especially as it relates to compensation and benefits, professional development and training, social and recreational programs, every stage of the employee journey, and the ongoing development of a work environment built on the premise of gender and diversity equity.

black outlined pledge icon

pay equality pledge

Committed to paying equitably for equal work and experience

black outlined pledge icon

pay diversity pledge

Has programs that support a diverse and inclusive workforce

black outlined pledge icon

pay equality pledge

Committed to paying equitably for
equal work and experience

black outlined pledge icon

pay diversity pledge

Has programs that support a diverse
and inclusive workforce

AMO is Committed To:

  • Respectful communication and cooperation between all employees
  • Teamwork and employee participation, permitting the representation of all groups and employee perspectives
  • Work/life balance through flexible work schedules to accommodate employees’ varying needs
  • Employer and employee contributions to the communities we serve to promote a greater understanding and respect for diversity
  • Educate our team on how DEI initiatives impact and truly bring value to our company
  • AMO has conducted a company-wide gender pay gap analysis across occupations and is committed to continuing to ensure pay equality now and in the future
  • Provide training such as unconscious bias for our whole team
  • Maintenance and expansion of set pay scales for positions around the company 
  • Recruitment and ongoing retention efforts that focus on diverse representation at every level
  • Being more Inclusive hiring and recruitment practices
  • Inclusive interview practices and structured interviews
  • Increase representation of underrepresented communities in technical roles
  • Implement inclusive hiring and promotion process and procedures to be more equitable
  • Provide clear pathways to personal and professional growth regardless of career goals
View DEI Plan

Team and Leadership Gender and Ethnicity

The AMOpportunities team is more than talented; we’re diverse. We know that to get the best ideas and provide the best services, we need people from all backgrounds who have a variety of experiences and can see things from different perspectives. Here’s a look at who’s currently helping change how clinical training is done today.

Team
Gender

pie chart team gender

Team
ethnicity

pie chart team ethnicity

Leadership
gender

pie charts leadership gender

leadership
ethnicity

pie chart leadership ethnicity

Our Representation Goals

As part of our vision of building a workplace that mirrors our society, we published a representation goal to maintain having at least 50% of our workforce comprised of underrepresented groups*.  

*Underrepresented groups include Women, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Multiracial, LGBTQ+, People with Disabilities, and Veterans.

Team

pie charts team representation

Leadership

pie chart leadership representation
ethnicity race industry bar graph

Our Current DEI Initiatives

AMOpportunities has initiated Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts across various parts of our business model. We have revamped our hiring process to source a more diverse pool of candidates, established demographic metrics to keep our team diversified, and have worked to eliminate barriers for individual growth through a structure of transparency across our company, salary transparency, charity matching, and regular company updates.

Orange Hiring Process Circle Icon

The Hiring Process

  • Interview Matrix
  • Cross-Department Interviewing
  • Structured Interviews
  • Inclusive Messaging on Job Postings
  • New Employee Sourcing
  • Mentoring
  • Family-Friendly Benefits
learn more
Orange Employee Feedback Circle Icon

Employee Feedback

  • Feedback Surveys
  • Start/Stop/Continue Questionnaires
  • Pre-Meeting Suggestions
  • 360° Feedback Process
  • HR Open Office Hours
  • Cross-Company Peer Reviews
learn more
Orange Transparency Circle Icon

Transparency

  • State of AMO
  • Sharing Company KPIs
  • Inclusive Meeting Habits
  • DEI Trainings
  • Salary Transparency
  • Charity Matching
  • Open Meetings
  • Carta Total Rewards
learn more

The Hiring Process

Finding and hiring great people are the first essential step to building a diverse team and an equitable and inclusive company culture. Unfortunately, without a system to guide hiring managers through the process, they will too often hire people just like themselves. The result is a homogenous, less effective team and workforce, and one that is overwhelmingly white and male.

Receiving feedback from DEI Committee members and the company, we broke down and evaluated each step of our hiring process—from finding great talent, through interviewing, case studies, and all the way through the offer.

1

Hiring Process Step 1 Icon Blue

Our first step was to look at where we sourced talent from. We partnered with organizations like local Chicago city colleges, the NAACP, and groups of professionals from underrepresented backgrounds to make sure our job postings reached channels where candidates were more likely to find the job and apply. We rebuilt how we posted our positions—inviting candidates to apply even if they did not meet 100% of the criteria. We set internal guidelines to make sure the group of candidates we invited to interview was diverse not only of race or gender but of experience and background.

2

Hiring Process Step 2 Icon Blue

We recognized first impressions are biased, so we implemented a hiring matrix system shown to help interviewers recognize patterns in their evaluation and when their evaluations are outside of the norm. We developed standardized interview questions and case studies to objectively value candidates.

3

Hiring Process Step 3 Icon Blue

Finally, recognizing diversity of perspective is critical. Every candidate that is hired interviews with at least one member of another department.

The Hiring Process

Finding and hiring great people are the first essential step to building a diverse team and an equitable and inclusive company culture. Unfortunately, without a system to guide hiring managers through the process, they will too often hire people just like themselves. The result is a homogenous, less effective team and workforce, and one that is overwhelmingly white and male.

Receiving feedback from DEI Committee members and the company, we broke down and evaluated each step of our hiring process—from finding great talent, through interviewing, case studies, and all the way through the offer.

1

Our first step was to look at where we sourced talent from. We partnered with organizations like local Chicago city colleges, the NAACP, and groups of professionals from underrepresented backgrounds to make sure our job postings reached channels where candidates were more likely to find the job and apply. We rebuilt how we posted our positions—inviting candidates to apply even if they did not meet 100% of the criteria. We set internal guidelines to make sure the group of candidates we invited to interview was diverse not only of race or gender but of experience and background.

2

We recognized first impressions are biased, so we implemented a hiring matrix system shown to help interviewers recognize patterns in their evaluation and when their evaluations are outside of the norm. We developed standardized interview questions and case studies to objectively value candidates.

3

Finally, recognizing diversity of perspective is critical. Every candidate that is hired interviews with at least one member of another department.

Evaluating Outcomes

The committee started its work in Q4 of 2020 by measuring the current culture of AMO around diversity, equity, and inclusion to create a baseline for where AMO was, as well as gain insight on where the whole team wanted the committee to focus. Once our 2021 plan was established and action items were identified, the team went to work.  Team meetings were utilized to present actions and updates to the full AMO team as well as monthly anonymous surveys to invite feedback around the work of the committee.

orange why we measure circle icon

how we measure

Starting in September of each year, the committee plans to resurvey the AMO team by utilizing the original Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion surveys from the 2020 baseline surveys to continue to measure the company culture and impact of the committee’s work.

Orange Sharing Ideas Icon
Gain skills from your clinical experience medical electives to help you on the USMLE

why we measure

The committee intends to utilize the feedback to gain additional insights and ideas from the AMO team to assist in the development of next year’s DEI strategic plans.  The committee also utilizes multiple open feedback channels to welcome input from team members to help guide future DEI actions.

View DEI Plan

Employee Feedback

A cornerstone of our DEI strategic plan is the addition of new tools within our organization to track progress and include our people. This is necessary to ensure we are working towards being more inclusive. We developed new tools to gauge qualitative and quantitative feedback.
Feedback Survey Icon Blue

Feedback
Surveys

Start/Stop/Continue Questionnaires Icon Blue

Start/Stop/Continue
Questionnaires

Pre-Meeting Suggestions Icon Blue

Pre-Meeting
Suggestions

360 feedback process icon blue

360° Feedback
Process

HR open office hours icon blue

HR Open
Office Hours

company reviews icon blue

Cross-Company
Peer Reviews

Our DEI committee initially utilized feedback surveys to gauge how employees perceived the existing culture and then, through initiative launches, those continued surveys provided a channel to learn of progress. Part of this included the start/stop/continue questionnaires that provide teams with a new framework to improve efficiency by discussing things they would like AMO to start, stop, and/or continue doing in a meaningful way. The pre-meeting suggestions are utilized for our bi-weekly all-company meetings where all employees can ask questions ahead of time. These new tools have led to a more inclusive organization and provide information needed to continually improve DEI together.

Transparency

A healthy organization requires proper transparency. Employees have goals to achieve and need access to the right information to find success.

Within our DEI initiatives we knew it would be more equitable and inclusive to improve how we share company performance along with how team members can grow within the organization. This was found not only in our initial research, but in our feedback surveys.  
To create more transparency in our financials, below are the steps we have taken. All these initiatives were built to improve transparency within our organization and make growth more accessible.
  • Share our monthly financial performance
  • Communicate the health of the company with a State of AMO presentation given to all employees every six months
  • Developed a company-wide document with our key performance indicators
  • Provided details regarding company titles with pay and role transparency along with a new enabling process for employees to request a raise with their manager
State of AMO Transparency with Yearly KPI's slide

Making Clinical Training Accessible

Beyond organizational values, DEI also embodies our external company values. It is our mission to make clinical training accessible to everyone of all backgrounds. There is a reason behind why this is so important—diversity, equity, and inclusion in healthcare improves patient outcomes.

Visitor Photo for accessible clinical training

The U.S. medical system is suffering from a shortage of physicians especially in rural and underserved areas and especially in primary care specialties (family doctors, internists, OBGYNs). Estimates show the U.S. could be short nearly 43,000 primary care physicians by 2030 and ranks near the bottom of OECD nations in terms of medical graduates per population.

Visitor Photo for accessible clinical training immigrant doctors

The U.S. relies heavily on immigrant doctors. Today, over 25% of practicing physicians in the U.S. are international medical graduates (IMG), and that number is predicted to rise. IMGs account for 40% of the primary care workforce and 50% of the geriatric's workforce. Further, IMGs are more likely to practice in geographic areas where there are rising physician shortages—such as rural and at-risk urban communities—and see more Medicaid patients than U.S.-trained physicians.

Our Visitors

The trainees we work with come from all around the world

Visitor Raad Headshot Photo

Raad, Saudi Arabia – Recent Medical School Graduate

Raad always dreamed of traveling to the U.S. He wanted to have a taste of what life would be like on the other side of the world and to know more about the U.S. healthcare system. His AMO clinical experiences were his first time in the U.S.

Learn more
Visitor Matt headshot Photo

Matt, Canada – Pre-Medical School Student

Matt problem solved challenges posed by the pandemic by participating in virtual rotations to maximize his medical experiences. Through AMO he completed an online surgical rotation and plans to do others soon.

Learn more
visitor bagheeta headshot photo

Bhagheeta, Malaysia – Recent Medical School Graduate

Bhageeta graduated from Melaka Manipal Medical College and was recently called for her housemanship program, making her a junior doctor! She chose an AMO clinical experience because she wanted to experience a new culture and see what it’s like to work somewhere else.

Learn more
visitor besmira headshot photo

Besmira, Albania – Medical Resident

Besmira graduated from the University of Medicine of Tirana and, since then, she’s worked in a family medicine office and rediscovered an interest in academic medicine. She’s now an assistant professor in Albania and is working towards a Ph.D. in Microbiology.

Learn more

Trainee Statistics

Genders our Trainees identify as

Genders our visitors identify as graphic

Trainee Education Status

Education status of our visitors pie chart

places our Trainees call home

countries our visitors call home bar graph

The DEI Committee

The DEI committee is championed by AMO team members with diverse identities, positions, and perspectives. Our committee members have different levels of influence and represent a variety of departments at AMO to advocate for initiatives among their teams and throughout the company.

Ben

Bradley

COO

Ryan

Flores

VP of International Sales Operations

Ashley

Haines

Director of Human Resources

Megha

Khanna

Customer Success Manager

Brook

Owen

Visitor Experience Coach

Kyle

Swinsky

CEO

meet the amo team