The Department of Medicine’s Division of General Medicine has received a $20,000 grant from leading internal medicine organizations to rebuild trust and address inequities in medical education and training. The award was presented by the Alliance for Academic Internal Medicine (AAIM), the American Board of Internal Medicine (ABIM), the ABIM Foundation, the American College of Physicians (ACP) and the Josiah Macy Jr. Foundation, one of 32 totaling $287,500.
The project “Reducing Primary Care Health Disparities through Medical Student Quality Improvement (QI)” will address increasing disparities and issues of bias and inequity in the US health care system. It will also seek to leverage existing QI infrastructure, to advance health equity across the heath system while concomitantly teaching medical students how targeted QI can combat health disparities and improve patient outcomes.
“We propose to teach students to use the new equity dashboard to identify health disparities and collaborate with multidisciplinary teams to develop and implement QI projects that promote health equity,” said Karina Whelan, MD, principal investigator. “We also hope to provide a formative experience that will shape how these learners perceive and subsequently challenge systemic barriers to care as they progress in their careers.”
The award team includes Crystal Wiley Cene, MD, MPH, FAHA, Amy Shaheen, MD, and Casey Olm-Shipman, MD, MS (neurology).