Department of Anthropology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Department of Anthropology, Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 5436 Sewell Social Sciences Building 1180 Observatory Drive, 53708, Madison, WI, USA.
Adv Health Sci Educ Theory Pract. 2023 Oct;28(4):1347-1360. doi: 10.1007/s10459-023-10210-5. Epub 2023 Mar 1.
Medical-school applicants learn from many sources that they must stand out to fit in. Many construct self-presentations intended to appeal to medical-school admissions committees from the raw materials of work and volunteer experiences, in order to demonstrate that they will succeed in a demanding profession to which access is tightly controlled. Borrowing from the field of architecture the lens of construction ecology, which considers buildings in relation to the global effects of the resources required for their construction, we reframe medical-school admissions as a social phenomenon that has far-reaching harmful unintended consequences, not just for medicine but for the broader world. Illustrating with discussion of three common pathways to experiences that applicants widely believe will help them gain admission, we describe how the construction ecology of medical school admissions can recast privilege as merit, reinforce colonizing narratives, and lead to exploitation of people who are already disadvantaged.
医学院申请者从许多渠道了解到，他们必须脱颖而出才能适应环境。为了向严格控制准入的高要求职业证明自己能够成功，许多人从工作和志愿者经历的原始材料中构建自我陈述，以吸引医学院招生委员会。借鉴建筑领域的建筑生态学视角，该视角将建筑物与建造所需资源的全球影响联系起来，我们将医学院招生重新定义为一种具有深远的、意想不到的有害后果的社会现象，不仅对医学，而且对更广泛的世界都有影响。通过讨论申请者普遍认为有助于他们获得入学机会的三种常见途径，我们描述了医学院招生的建筑生态学如何将特权重塑为优点，强化殖民叙事，并导致已经处于不利地位的人受到剥削。
