Session: Diversity and Inclusion in Medical Education
“Do you even go here?”: An Exploratory Study on the Racial Microaggressions that Black Medical Students Experience
Saturday, October 14, 2023
1:15 PM – 2:30 PM ET
Location: Heron (Fourth Floor)
In recent years, especially since the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a concerted effort to redouble the effort to diversify medicine. Medical school institutions and hospitals are pushing for people of color to train and work within these spaces, as it benefits both students and their future minority patients by making the healthcare system look more like the people it is serving. Yet, the presence of minorities in predominately white institutions (PWI) and historically white spaces also puts them at considerable risk of experiencing the ill effects of microaggressions that stem from systemic racism. A microaggression is defined as an intentional or unintentional expression that perpetuates negative pre-existing societal beliefs about a groups deportment. Racial microaggressions are significant in that they negatively affect Black minority students physically and mentally, even to the point where many reconsider their choice to enter the field of medicine. In this presentation we 1) provide evidence from the literature to show that Black Medical students are more likely than other groups to receive racial microaggressions and suffer from the lasting effects, 2) identify the common microaggressions that Black Medical students experience and 3) analyze the programs that medical schools have implemented to expunge the occurrence.