Thread Description

All graduating medical students need to be competent in communicating with and advocating for patients, families and colleagues of diverse backgrounds. Physicians must be able to identify how conscious and unconscious biases can affect patient care, to explain how all aspects of diversity (including race, ethnicity, language facility, age, sex and gender identity, sexual orientation, differential abilities and disabilities, and faith practice) intersect with health outcomes, to commit to anti-racism, and to challenge themselves to learn from others while developing skills as effective cross-cultural communicators and advocates for high-quality patient care for every community.

The goal of HESJAR is to help medical students learn to:

• Increase health equity.
• Advance health-related social justice.
• Reduce the misuse of race within health care.

In order to move toward this goal, all graduating medical students will need to:

• Develop skills in in identifying and addressing inequities within health care-related Systems, Cultures, and Structures (SCS).
• Develop the skills and commitment to better understand, communicate with, and advocate for patients, families, and colleagues of diverse intersectional backgrounds.
• Demonstrate the use of the Health Equity Framework (HEF) to support and interact with patients, families, and colleagues.

The HESJAR thread will coordinate, complement and build on relevant themes and topics existent in other SOM curricula/designated emphases such as Public Health and Social Medicine, Medical Humanities, Street Medicine, Correctional Medicine, LACE and Community Health. 

Thread Contacts

Adwoa Osei, MD – HESJAR Thread Co-Director
adwoa.osei@medsch.ucr.edu

Carlos Cortes – HESJAR Thread Co-Director
carlos.cortes@ucr.edu