There is a lot of activity around diversity education right now. As I see it, the activity focuses on two inter-connected goals. One goal is to create a more inclusive school culture and learning experiences for both staff and students. The complementary goal is to equip students to be citizens and professionals who aim to make the world fair and just for all. Principles of inclusion, lifelong learning and authenticity guide these activities.
As a School Academic Lead for Inclusive Practice and soon to be a Decolonising Academic Lead, I regularly seek out understandings, insights and examples of inclusive practices as well as barriers to learning. There are numerous resources to find out there and it can be overwhelming to sort through it and identify those that will be most useful to colleagues in medicine and health. I am grateful to organisations that pull some of these resources and thinking together.
In this report published in December 2021, the Medical Schools Council (MSC) presents a vision for inclusion and the importance of challenging exclusion in medical education: https://www.medschools.ac.uk/media/2918/active-inclusion-challenging-exclusions-in-medical-education.pdf
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The Association for the Study of Medical Education (ASME) has an annual scholarship meeting which has a growing strand of research on diversity and inclusion. The 2021 meeting invited one of the founders of DIMAH to give a plenary talk, Professor Nisha Dogra. And AMEE, the international association for medical education, is an ideal place for engaging with global issues and perspectives. The 2022 conference will include a talk by Dr Thirusha Naidu reflecting on the dominance of western science in medical education, likely to prompt some useful discussions around decoloniality.
The GMC provides guidance to medical schools on supporting disabled students:
www.gmc-uk.org/education/standards-guidance-and-curricula/guidance/welcomed-and-valued
Neurodiversity and Specific Learning Difficulties such as dyslexia are most common and yet not well understood in our learning contexts. However, there are some useful resources to be found. For example in nursing:
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The GMC also addresses an important aspect of stigma:
There is more to do to push our knowledge and practice in medical education and health professions education forward. The more people we have in these meta-organisations who are committed to diversity and inclusion the better chance we have of meeting the above goals. There are currently three ASME director positions that are vacant and the deadline to submit an expression of interest is the 16th May 2022.
Being a member of DIMAH has also provided an invaluable space to learn and develop our ideas and initiatives.
Another way to further our activities in diversity and inclusion is through scholarship and learning that engages across disciplines, through engagement with organisations such as Advance HE and the Society for Higher Education Research, not to mention the many Royal Colleges and allied health professional bodies. DIMAH is committed to supporting colleagues in these activities through developing a common online location for sharing resources. Watch this space!
Valerie Farnsworth, May 2022