How to Eliminate a Deficit-Centered Mindset About Medical Students of Color
Martha Elks1, Zita Lazzarini2, Cinnamon Bradley3
1Senior associate dean for educational affairs, associate dean of undergraduate medical education, and professor of medicine and medical education at the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.
Abstract:
Approaches to responding to racial and ethnic health inequity in the United States have had limited impact over the past 40 years. Efforts to increase the number of medical students of color are undermined by hyperfocus and overreliance on and misinterpretation and misuse of standardized examination scores. Structural racism and persistence of deficit-focused interventions undermine appreciation of the value that students and physicians with minoritized identities bring to medicine and to US health care's systemic capacity to motivate equity.
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