Rethinking how race contributes to a patient ’s health

Physicians have been trained to think about race as a demographic factor that may influence a patient ’s health, but understanding how race influences health is evolving. One medical school is attempting to expand the way future physicians think about race in the exam room. Jennifer Tsai and Bryan Leyva, medical students at Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, shared how students at their school succeeded in changing how race is addressed in their curriculum in a presentation titled, “Moving past diversity toward decolonization: Bringing critical race theory to the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University.” The talk was held during the AMA ’sAccelerating Change in Medical Education Consortium student-led meeting on health equity and community-based learning at the University of California, Davis, School of Medicine in early August. The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University is a member of the consortium, but this work on race theory is not a part of their consortiu m project.What is race? Race is socially and politically constructed, Tsai told those gathered at the meeting. Racial categories on the U.S. Census have changed every decade since 1790, showing just how vulnerable they are to the current political climate, she said.“Race becomes a poor surrogate for family history,” she said. For example, a physician could say, “‘You’re from Africa, so you have a higher rate of this disease.’ …. But Africa is a whole continen...
Source: AMA Wire - Category: Journals (General) Authors: Source Type: news