Advancing Race-Conscious Medicine: Using Debate to Promote Critical Appraisal of Race in Medical Literature

Systemic racism has resulted in ongoing health disparities disproportionately affecting Black/Latinx patients. The use of race in medical literature can reinforce ideas of racially distinct mechanisms of illness and lead to differential treatment based on race classifications, further exacerbating inequities.

This study used an innovative debate-style curriculum to teach residents how to critically examine race in medical literature using an asthma clinical trial.

Ambulatory curriculum.

One hundred twenty-four internal medicine residents.

A 90-min educational session included a brief article overview followed by a debate. Residents were assigned to an affirmative or opposing team to debate if studying only Black/Latinx patients in the trial was justified. The session concluded by reviewing how racism contributes to health disparities and clinical trial inequities with strategies to address these issues.

Pre/post-surveys assessed comfort discussing race, appraisal of race in medical literature, and perceived importance of SDOH in research.

The debate-based session enhanced residents' comfort discussing race, promoted critical thinking and perspective-taking, and equipped them with tools to appraise race-consciousness in medical literature and clinical practice.