The Health Justice Teach-In Series: A Student-Led Model To Fill Medical School Curriculum Gaps: Q&A and Discussion

Proposal: The health inequities faced by Minnesotan patients are multifactorial and need to be addressed with an interdisciplinary health justice lens, bringing together students of medicine, public health, physical therapy, nursing, and more to deconstruct these issues in the same room. For the last three years, the University of Minnesota chapter of White Coats for Black Lives has been facilitating these conversations through our Health Justice Teach-In Series. Through this series, students come together each week to attend a “Teach-In” that covers critical topics not included in the existing curricula for health professionals students. For example, topics have included “Indigenous Traditional Healing & the Impact of White Supremacy on Native Health” or “Abolition Medicine & Racial Capitalism.” Importantly, Teach-Ins use a peer-to-peer, discussion-based model of learning, allowing students to navigate our own reactions to injustice and bring our lived experiences to the table. Students with lived experiences tied to the week’s topic led the session with the support of peers who conducted extensive research. Currently, Teach-Ins are one of very few spaces to critically analyze the structures of medicine outside of these exact structures, where students can take time outside the curriculum to examine medical practice through an equity lens.

Results of this project were overall positive. At the end of each Teach-In, learners are prompted to fill out a feedback form. When asked if they had an “overall positive experience with this Teach-In,” 100% (n = 102) of respondents said “Yes”. Additionally, 96.6% of participants felt that we covered material that their school curriculum did not cover.

White Coats for Black Lives’ Teach-In Series is starting cross-discipline conversations around health justice topics that are not covered in our classes. As the founders of this student initiative, we aim to present our process, challenges, and tools for participants to replicate this model at other medical schools or residencies through a trauma-informed and healing-centered lens. We will also ask small groups of participants to reimagine what their medical school curriculums might look like if antiracism and justice were centered. We hope this framework offers an opportunity for health professional students to transform our education and ensure that we are well prepared to work for justice in our clinical practices.