New Curriculum Addresses Racism in Medicine Societal events and student petition galvanize changes By Ellen Goldbaum
A revised medical curriculum at the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences— set to launch in 2023—will have anti-racism principles embedded in its core. Catalyzed in 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as by the George Floyd murder and the global protests that followed, the evolving new curriculum is a result of the profound reckoning that these events forced upon those studying and practicing medicine. “I have never seen so much willingness to change,” notes Margarita Dubocovich, PhD, senior associate dean for diversity and inclusion, and one of four co-chairs of the Diversity, Inclusion and Learning Environment Committee. “This is the moment. This is the opportunity.” While issues such as the social determinants of health have been part of the Jacobs School’s orientation and required courses, it was a student-written document and petition submitted in June 2020 that launched the comprehensive efforts now underway.
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FALL 2022
UB MEDICINE
An emphasis on anti-racism is changing the way students in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences are learning medicine. Pictured in Gross Anatomy Lab are, from left: Kyle Kenyon, Joshua Kent, Ali Khan, Brianna Kinley, Class of 2026. Photo by Sandra Kicman
STUDENT PETITION “The student petition changed the urgency,” recalls Linda Pessar, MD, former director of the Center for Medical Humanities and now professor emerita of psychiatry. “It demanded that the medical school quickly increase its attention to structural racism and social justice, to look at the ways that the curriculum creates and perpetuates racism by not attending to differences among people.” Former Dean Michael E. Cain, MD, mandated that the requested changes be fast-tracked. His successor, Allison Brashear, MD, MBA, has redoubled those efforts. “Medical education at the Jacobs School is undergoing fundamental changes addressing structural racism in medicine in an effort that was initially inspired by our students,” says Brashear, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School, who came to UB in December 2021. “That fact speaks volumes about the depth of commitment that our students bring to this work collectively as they partner with faculty to achieve health equity in every aspect of patient care.” Recommendations included providing racial and socioeconomic context behind longstanding health issues in African American communities and directly acknowledging the effects of systemic racism and the threat of police violence on the physical health of
