Training Medical Students to Recognize, Understand, and Mitigate the Impact of Racism in a Service-Learning Course

The Morehouse School of Medicine's Community Health Course (CHC) trains first-year medical students to work with people of ra-cial and ethnic minorities and economically and medically disad-vantaged communities. This service-learning course includes the diagnosis/assessment of the health of a community and the devel-opment, implementation, and evaluation of a plan to improve some aspect of the community's health. The CHC teaches about the impact of racism on the health of communities through lectures, educational games, and videos focused on social determin-ants of health, cultural competence, and effective community en-gagement. Students complete small group assessments, interven-tions, and service activities at assigned sites. This pedagogical ap-proach integrates the Association of Medical Colleges' Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion competencies and engages many com-munity partners. The course's strengths include a multidisciplinary faculty, a cul-turally and educationally diverse student body, and community partners with varied backgrounds and resources. Opportunities ex-ist for collaborations with other degree programs to sustain and in-crease the impact of community interventions and link this community-based educational activity to clinical training years. Course evaluations, exams, and short essays assess students' awareness of racism and the extent to which unconscious bias af-fects students' completion and interpretation of community assess-ment data and their engagement with community partners.