Our expert answers 3 Questions
Research into the effect of educational diversity on healthcare delivery has previously focused on patient and provider attitudes with minimal connection to behavioral and health outcomes investigated. While exploring these connections incorporates several complex systems, I believe we are required to theorize, investigate, and intervene in novel ways within the educational system to find additional remedies to persistent health equity issues.
Medical education is the often-underappreciated scaffold on which all of healthcare in this country is based. Educators, in large part, choose who gets to be a physician, what students and residents learn, how they are assessed, what medical fields they chose to enter, and what constitute the standards necessary to remain competent as a practicing physician. All of these educational policy choices in turn impact who gets care, the skill of that care, and the overall health of the U.S. population. Almost every aspect of the healthcare system is impacted by medical education.
I believe that if we transformed our understanding of the professional education practice in such a way as to orient its learner outcomes toward patient care and health systems goals, the potential for positive change in society would be profound.