Presented on September 26, 2018
Medical trainees in the United States are experiencing emerging challenges to health care and health care access domestically.
Meanwhile, a global push for universal health coverage (UHC) is occurring outside our borders. Fundamental to navigating an uncertain future for health care systems, and providing care that meets patients’ needs, is an understanding of the concepts of health equity and the social determinants of health. Health professionals in the U.S. are acutely aware of the wide disparities in access to health care for the patients they serve. Medical educators recognize this health care gap and the need to teach future health care professionals that understanding the goals of health equity is fundamental to delivering effective care. Unfortunately, integrating these crucial concepts within medical education is challenging. We will discuss these challenges, and present the current landscape of published literature as well as the history of social medicine as well as its place in medical education today specifically in the form of introducing structural competency. We will also describe some teaching tools to share with fellow educators.
Speaker
- Ashti Doobay-Persaud, MD