Can US Medical Schools Teach About Structural Racism?

Unlabelled: Policy Points There need to be sweeping changes to medical school curricula that addresses structural racism in medicine and how to attend to this in medical practice. The Liaison Committee on Medical Education should develop and promulgate specific learning objectives and curricular offerings that require medical schools to teach about structural racism and antiracist medical practice in ways that are robust and standardized. The federal government, through the Health Resources and Services Administration, should prioritize support for antiracism education in medical schools, residency, and continuing medical education in similar ways and with similar effort in scale and scope to its support for primary care, providing technical assistance and grants for programs across the educational spectrum that provide antiracist training.

Struggles and Tensions in Antiracism Education in Medical School: Lessons Learned.

Purpose: Faculty from different racial and ethnic backgrounds developed and piloted an antiracism curriculum initially designed to help medical students work more effectively with patients of color. Learning objectives included developing stronger therapeutic relationships, addressing the effects of structural racism in the lives of patients, and mitigating racism in the medical encounter.

Method: The antiracism curriculum was delivered and evaluated in 2019 through focus groups and written input before and after each module.

Framing the future's expert panel report on the MPH degree: a step backward?

Framing the Future Task Force, a group assembled by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health to identify key issues facing public health education as it enters its second 100 years, has recently released a report, "A Master of Public Health Degree for the 21st Century." The report calls for a significant shift in emphasis for the MPH degree away from a generalist, core curriculum in favor of a greater emphasis on areas of specialty. This commentary argues that such a shift would reverse the progress made since the 1988 Institute of Medicine report called on academia to better meet practice needs.

Reforming medical education: a review and synthesis of five critiques of medical practice.

For physicians to provide appropriate healthcare at a reasonable cost, health reform may not be enough. This essay discusses the scope of educational reform needed in the U.S.

Teaching health departments: meeting the challenge of public health education.

Since the 1988 Institute of Medicine report The Future of Public Health, educators and practitioners have sought to better prepare students for practice. A review of these efforts suggests that they have yet to achieve an adequate synthesis of academic and practice-based education. The authors argue that a fundamental change in the structure of pubic health agencies is required so that all public health students receive practice training in teaching health departments.

The combined master of public health program at Tufts University.

The Combined Master of Public Health program at Tufts University unites medical and veterinary medical students in a four-year curriculum that integrates students' clinical studies with simultaneous studies on population health. Thirty years ago, Tufts University adopted a "One Medicine" approach to teaching health professionals. That perspective has been updated as "One Health" and is now being applied in a university environment that emphasizes interdisciplinary education, a global outlook, and civic engagement.

Lack of national primary care organization partnerships with community groups to promote health care reform.

Coalitions are necessary for successful political change. Few national primary care provider organizations partner with community, consumer, or labor organizations, and very few do so to promote policy on access to health care. Many of these provider organizations do work on health care access policy issues and do work in partnership with a variety of organizations, suggesting that community-provider partnerships may be a promising but overlooked strategy for promoting health care reform.