Toward an Anti-Racist Curriculum: Incorporating Art into Medical Education to Improve Empathy and Structural Competency.

Background: There is an urgent need for medical school curricula that address the effects of structural influences, particularly racism, on health, healthcare access, and the quality of care for people of color. Underrepresented racial minorities in the United States receive worse health care relative to their White counterparts. Structural competency, a framework for recognizing and understanding social influences on health, provides a means for understanding the structural violence that results from and perpetuates racism in classroom and clinical education.