Anti-Racism Training Program Presented

Last summer, in the wake of George Floyd protests and the Black Lives Matter movement, a seven-member student team of second-year College of Medicine students led by Stacey Gardner-Buckshaw, Ph.D., assistant professor of family and community medicine, developed a plan for anti-racism training. 

One of the team members, Isabelle Mawby, explains, “We all felt that it is necessary for future providers to have the ability to understand how racism permeates the health care system. There have been many previous studies which proved that students who had lessons on racism were better equipped for recognizing implicit biases and were better able to use tools to respond and address the bias/racism they witness or experience. 

“The purpose of our project is to educate Student-Run Free Clinic volunteers on the various levels of racism in health care; personal biases; and strategies to address racism.”

Members of the team that developed the training and modules were Mawby, Amani Ashraf, Prapti Dalal, Joel Harris, Justin Jickess, Sonia Kshatri, and Sahar Rehman. 

The team’s work reached a wider audience when the group presented the anti-racism training – along with wellness training modules that it had developed for volunteers at the Student-Run Free Clinic  at NEOMED – during the University of Miami Department of Community Service 2021 Community Health Leadership Conference. The event was held virtually Saturday, Jan. 23.