We are a collective of racialized academics addressing the racial attainment gap in medical and health professionals’ education and career outcomes. Within our collaborative space, each member maintains their individuality, identity, and associations. No individual member may speak on behalf of our group, nor are we responsible, as a group, for any of our members’ individual actions or comments.
Consulting a single member of our group does not equate to having conducted a project consultation with our collective.
As an academic group with a very clear and focussed area of action, we do not comment on any topics outside of our chosen field. Equity, diversity, and inclusion work is vast. We assert our academic integrity in refraining from commenting on topics outside of our clearly defined focus and expertise.
As racialized members of the Academy, we recognize the risks our members take in calling out racism in our professional bodies, and the particular risks posed to our group should our membership be made public.
Our membership is private, though each individual is free to advertise their association with our group should they feel comfortable in doing so.
MBBS, MClinEd, FHEA, CCFP
Director, Racialized Medical Learner Mentorship, FHS, McMaster
As a South Asian Racialized neurodiverse woman, Anjali combines her love of teaching, anti-racism community activism, and her own positionality with the goal of creating supportive learning and working environments in medicine. Humanism pedagogy strongly influences her teaching philosophy, with the guiding principle that we can only attain knowledge when our basic needs are met. She posits that the most basic of all our needs are our needs to feel safe and to feel like we belong. This is how she approaches education and her current focus in understanding the causes of racial differentials in attainment.
Structural and systemic racism inherent in the medical establishment creates and exacerbates racial trauma and heightens psychological risk. The critical views needed to make our vision a reality require psychological and professional safety. We create safety through establishing an autonomous identity as a non-profit organization - a collective space that concentrates our racial power.
We reject the artificial and white supremacist separation of the academy and the wider community in which it is situated. We maintain that our community identities are central to our scholarship and our work. We see our colleagues, both within and outside existing institutions, as equals and co-conspirators in our vision and mission. Mentorship and mutual regard are central features of our collective.
We fundamentally reject the conceptualization of race, race essentialism and biological determinism. We do not believe in the collapsing of our unique identities and histories into a monolith. We commit to understanding the differential experiences of oppression, colonialism and marginalization that affect our people. We reject whiteness as superior and do not accept whiteness as the standard of normalcy and acceptability.
Addressing the racial attainment gap requires diversity of thought. We believe that disciplinary diversity leads to the most innovative and effective solutions. We believe that disciplinary diversity is key to dismantling medical patriarchy.
Criticality emerges from the margins, therefore we value the experiential knowledge and the narratives of our people. Our stories, histories and narratives matter and must be heard. We define what justice is, from our unique position and perspective.
We are committed to upholding EGAP and OCAP principles in our work. We apply QuantCrit theory to existing data collection processes in order to combat structural racism in PGME assessment evaluation.
We are leaders, innovators, and visionaries with the power to define our own worth, power, and futures. Our voices must be centered in transformational medical educational change.
Workshops
We have delivered workshop training on topics related to the study of racial differentials in attainment some of examples include:
Race in Medical Research: How to Critically Analyze Race-Based Data in Research
International Congress on Academic Medicine, Quebec City, QC, Canada.
Introduction to Medicine Module: EDI-IR and Critical Theory.
Undergraduate Medical Education, McMaster University, Hamilton ON, Canada.
Supporting racialized medical learners in the clinical training environment
Canadian Conference of Medical Education, Calgary, AB, Canada
Rounds and Invited Talks
Primarily delivered by the DARe Group Collaborative Lead (AM), recent speaking engagements include:
McMaster 16 Annual Day in Faculty Development 2023
Differentials in learner attainment: problems and solutions from racialized learners.
McMaster HSED Residency Week 2023
Supporting Racialized Learners in the Educational Environment.
HHS-SJH City Wide Family Medicine Rounds, Sept 2023
Constructing Race: CRITICALLY analyzing race in research.
Family Medicine Faculty Development Program, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University
Supporting Racialized Learners: An Evidence-Based Guide for Faculty and Residency Training Programs.
Mercer University Medical School. Georgia, USA
Supporting Racialized Learners in the Educational Environment.
CFPC’s Health Professional Educators Group in Family Medicine
What’s Missing in EDI Initiatives? Novel approaches from the racialized resident community.
Publications:
Commentary
It’s High Time Canada Start Collecting Race-Based Performance Data. (2022) The Lancet Regional Health-Americas. (Read More)
Research Protocol
The McMaster Racialized Resident Mentorship Program Evaluation Protocol: Evaluating a racialized resident to racialized staff physician mentorship network on resident sense of belonging and medical training outcomes. (2023) *Submitted for peer-review. (Read More)
Current Research Grants and Funding:
CFPC Racialized Community Leadership Grant - $10,000
McMaster Racialized Family Physician Mentorship Network.
Strategic Alignment Fund, Faculty of Health Sciences, McMaster University - $68,823.93
McMaster PGME $10,000
McMaster UGME $10,000
Racialized Medical Learner Mentorship Program
Current Research:
McMaster Racialized Medical Learner Mentorship and the Racialized Medical Learner Mentorship Program
This is a joint project between McMaster Postgraduate Medical Education, Undergraduate Medical Education, and a community partner, The DARe Group Collaborative. The primary aim is to provide accessible, structured, transformative mentorship to our racialized medical learners at the undergraduate and postgraduate medical education level, from a network of exclusively racialized mentors within FHS.
Publications:
Commentary
It’s High Time Canada Start Collecting Race-Based Performance Data. (2022) The Lancet Regional Health-Americas. (Read More)
Research Protocol
The McMaster Racialized Resident Mentorship Program Evaluation Protocol: Evaluating a racialized resident to racialized staff physician mentorship network on resident sense of belonging and medical training outcomes. (2023) *Submitted for peer-review. (Read More)
McMaster FHS Racialized Faculty Mentors
Equity in Health Systems Lab (EqHS)
Partnered with