Department of Medical Education, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
Department of Emergency Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
BMC Med Educ. 2022 Aug 10;22(1):612. doi: 10.1186/s12909-022-03650-x.
Medical schools have increasingly integrated social justice, anti-racism, and health equity training into their curricula. Yet, no research examines whether medical students understand the complex history of racial injustice. We sought to investigate the relationship between medical students' historical knowledge and their perceptions regarding health equity.
Medical students at one large urban medical school self-rated their familiarity and importance of various racially-significant historical events and persons, as well as their agreement with statements regarding health equity, education, and preparedness to act. Descriptive and multivariate analyses were conducted in R.
Of 166 (RR=31.3%) participants, 96% agreed that understanding historical context is necessary in medicine; yet 65% of students could not describe the historical significance of racial events or persons. Only 57% felt that they understood this context, and the same percentage felt other medical students did not. A minority of students felt empowered (40%) or prepared (31%) to take action when they witness racial injustice in healthcare. Multiracial identity was significantly associated with increased knowledge of African American history (p<0.01), and a humanities background was significantly associated with increased knowledge of Latin American history (p=0.017). There was a positive, significant relationship between advocacy statements, such as "I have taken action" (p<0.001) and "I know the roots of racism" (p<0.001) with mean familiarity of historical events.
This study demonstrates that while students agree that racism has no place in healthcare, there remains a paucity of knowledge regarding many events and figures in the history of American race relations and civil rights, with implications for future physicians' patient care and health equity efforts.
医学院校越来越多地将社会公正、反种族主义和健康公平培训纳入其课程。然而，目前尚无研究调查医学生是否理解种族不公正的复杂历史。我们试图研究医学生的历史知识与其对健康公平的看法之间的关系。
一所大型城市医学院的医学生自我评估了他们对各种具有种族意义的历史事件和人物的熟悉程度和重要性，以及他们对健康公平、教育和准备采取行动的陈述的认同程度。在 R 中进行了描述性和多变量分析。
在 166 名（RR=31.3%）参与者中，96%的人同意在医学中了解历史背景是必要的；然而，65%的学生无法描述种族事件或人物的历史意义。只有 57%的学生认为他们理解这种背景，相同比例的学生认为其他医学生不理解。少数学生感到有能力（40%）或准备（31%）在医疗保健中目睹种族不公正时采取行动。多种族身份与对非裔美国人历史知识的增加显著相关（p<0.01），人文学科背景与对拉丁美洲历史知识的增加显著相关（p=0.017）。倡导性言论，如“我已经采取了行动”（p<0.001）和“我知道种族主义的根源”（p<0.001）与历史事件的熟悉程度呈正相关，具有显著意义。
本研究表明，尽管学生们同意种族主义在医疗保健中没有立足之地，但他们对美国种族关系和民权历史中的许多事件和人物的了解仍然很少，这对未来医生的患者护理和健康公平努力有影响。
