Creating Leadership and Education to Address Racism

For the past five years, BUSM’s Medical Education Committee (MEC), the curriculum committee for the MD Program, has commissioned Vertical Integration Groups (VIGs) to examine our curriculum and provide recommendations in specific topic areas. Previous VIGs have explored gender and sexual diversity, nutrition, and substance use and prescription drug misuse, located here.

On May 9, 2019, the MEC formed the Racism in Medicine VIG, to:

• Provide a historical understanding of how racism impacts the institution of medicine and medical training.
• Assess the current BUSM curriculum on race and racism.
• Summarize the current literature on race and racism in medical curricula and the work of peer institutions.
• Provide tools, resources and  key recommendations for addressing race and racism in the curriculum.

The final report was submitted on June 12, 2020.

BUSM, and undergraduate medical education overall, must address how we teach students about systemic racism and health. Through the work of the VIG and their detailed recommendations, which include racism in medicine equity competencies, we have a path forward. I look forward to engaging in the many conversations that will follow and will work with all of you to implement durable change in medical education at BUSM. Finally, thank you to the VIG members for their outstanding work and for their contributions to the BUSM community.

Priya Garg, MD
Associate Dean of Medical Education
Assistant Professor of Pediatrics
Boston University School of Medicine