Medical students working in groups

Why is it important? 

Medical schools have a critical role in training doctors who understand the impact of societal inequity and who become advocates for the communities in which they work. MEdIC is committed to developing socially accountable medical education. Our work spans the student curriculum, widening access to healthcare careers for under-represented groups and creating an inclusive educational environment for all students and staff. 

Innovation and research 

MEdIC has developed a Community Action Project for our Year 3 medical students on primary care placements to work in collaboration with the local community to design and deliver a targeted intervention to address a local health need. These projects synergistically address community health needs and provide educational benefit for medical students. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, MEdIC worked to generate a digital version of this project, whereby medical students work remotely in partnership with local community organisations to identify and address key community health needs. Examples of students’ outputs include: creating accessible caption videos in multiple languages with the BME (Black and Minority Ethnic) Health Forum and collaborating with the Queen’s Park Rangers Community Trust to create support packages for local residents. More details can be found here 

MEdIC supports several areas of research and innovation aimed at widening access to healthcare. This includes an innovative programme in which medical students work with a local primary school to deliver health and science education to primary school pupils. Evaluation has shown the programme to raise aspirations of school pupils as well as providing medical students with an opportunity to increase their understanding of the diverse community in which they are studying. 

MEdIC also leads the WATCCH (Widening Access to Community Careers in Healthcare) programme, which supports local school students from diverse and disadvantaged backgrounds to access healthcare careers via work experience, education workshops and mentoring.  Research in this area focuses on how such programmes address barriers faced by students from widening participation backgrounds in accessing healthcare careers. 

MEdIC believes that all students should be able to remain true to themselves and be able to develop a sense of belonging within their medical schools. There is however ongoing discrimination of under-represented students contributing to identity suppression in order to ‘fit in’ which often interferes with students’ ability to succeed academically and professionally. MEdIC is undertaking a number of projects in this area, bringing together leading medical education academics to form a National Diversity and Inclusion in Primary Care Education Working Group with the aim of strengthening approaches to diversity and inclusion within primary care education. The team is also conducting research to better understand how we can create safe learning environments that protect and promote a sense of ‘authenticity’ in medical students impacted by discrimination.

If you’re interested in discussing a project or collaboration on this theme please contact Dr Nina Dutta n.dutta@imperial.ac.uk

 

Accordion

Current active projects

  • WATCCH (Widening Access to Community Careers in Healthcare): This supports Year 12 – 13 pupils from lower socioeconomic backgrounds who are interested in healthcare careers by providing primary care-based work experience, workshops and student mentoring. MEdIC is surveying career destinations of participants, exploring impact on student mentors and researching WATCCH impacts on barriers students from WP backgrounds face in accessing healthcare careers. 
  • Community Action Project: Year 3 students on primary care placements work with diverse communities to design and deliver interventions addressing local health needs. MEdIC is researching projects’ impact on students and community. 
  • Deconstructing BAME: Protecting, embracing and promoting authenticity in medical students at ICL: This study will explore ethnically minoritised students’ experiences of being their true self in the medical school and what learning and teaching strategies can help to enable this.
  • UK Medical Applicant Cohort Study – MEdIC has partnered with Dr Katherine Woolf at UCL to explore the impact of ethnicity and social capital on accessing work experience and other admissions experiences.
  • Community Collaboration: Our community collaborations lead, Stephanie Powell, leads a student selected module in Promoting Health Equity. Students have the opportunity to learn from diverse local community organisations about the lived experiences of their communities and consider how this impacts health inequities and promotes inclusion.
  • I-Explore Social Accountability in Action: A 10-week module developed in partnership with the local community and four schools in the Hammersmith and Fulham borough. In this experiential module, undergraduate Year 2 Imperial students studying STEMM subjects learn about social accountability, power and privilege, community engagement, and inclusive learning approaches. They work with school teachers to develop and deliver two extracurricular STEMM learning experiences for a group of diverse local secondary school pupils.  

Selected publications

Medical students impacted by discrimination: a qualitative study into their experiences of belonging and support systems at medical schools in the UK

Ikhlaq H, Agarwal S, Kwok C, et al 

A qualitative evaluation of the impact of a medical student school outreach project on both medical students and school pupils

Brown MEL, Ahuja N, Sivam V, et al

BMJ Open 2023;13:e070508. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2022-070508

Supporting medical students who experience discrimination: perspectives of General Practice tutors in primary care                             

Bharmal, S., Dutta, N., Kumar, S., Engineer N.                                                                      Education for Primary Care. 2022 Sep 19;33(4)

WATCCH: a multiprofessional approach to widening participation in healthcare careers

Dutta N, Scott K, Horsburgh J, Jamil F, Chandauka R, Meiring SJ, Kumar S.                            Education for Primary Care. 2022 Mar 4;33(2):102-8.

Cultural diversity and inclusion in undergraduate primary care education     

Dutta, N., Maini, A., Afolabi, F., Forrest, D., Golding, B., Korede Salami, R. & Kumar, S.          Education for Primary Care 2021 Mar;32 doi: 10.1080/14739879.2021.1900749

A future in general practice? Medical applicant GP experience and career aspirations: a questionnaire study

McKechnie, D.G.J., Olatunji, A.E., Fyfe, M.V., Dutta, N., Woolf, K., et al
British Journal of General Practice Open, 2021 Mar. doi:10.3399/BJGPO.2021.0023

Structural racism in society and the covid-19 “stress test”
Douglass C, Fyfe M, Lokugamage A. 
The BMJ Opinion 2020 Jun 8.

Widening participation: moving from diversity to inclusion
Fyfe
, MV., Kumar, S., Maini, A., Horsburgh, J., Golding, B
British Medical Journal 2020 Mar 12;368:m966. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m966. 

A reflection on Imperial College London’s Community Action Project
Houbby, N., Abdelwahed, A. and Kumar, S.
Education for Primary Care 2020 pp.1-2 Mar 26:1-2 10.1080/14739879.2020.1744191 

Selected presentations

Exploring the impact of being a medical student mentor on a widening access programme  Pilling, R., Lalloo, F., Dutta, N., Forrest, D., Scott, K, Kumar, S.                            ASME 2022

Deconstructing ‘BAME’: Protecting and promoting the sense of authenticity of ethnically minoritised medical students  Moula, Z                                                                                     ASME 2022

Exploring the interconnectedness of medical student                                                             Bull, S., Saleh, S. in collaboration with University of Exeter                                                    ASME 2022

Community-academic partnerships addressing local health inequalities during COVID-19: a qualitative evaluation. 
Kaur M, Golding B, Maini A, Kumar S. 
Lancet UK Public Health Science conference 2021 

The WATCCH programme: a multiprofessional approach to widening access to careers in healthcare
Dutta N., Chandauka R., Maini A., Kumar S.
AMEE 2020

Building socially accountable leadership: community needs and asset-based analysis (NABA) approach to undergraduate medical curricular change
Golding, B., Maini, A., Dutta, N., Kaur, M., Kumar, S.
Towards Unity for Health Conference 2020

Cultivating an environment of social accountability: academic primary care for the future
Visani, B., Douglass, C.
Society of Academic Primary Care conference 2019

A Community Collaboration: Dalgarno Trust & Department of Primary Care, Imperial College Goodger, A., Maini, A., Douglass, C., Visani, B.  
The Kings Fund, Community is the Best Medicine 2019  

Community action projects in medical education
Dutta, N., Abdelwahed, A., Houbby, N., O’Connor, T., Raines, A., Douglass, C., Kumar, S. 
The Kings Fund, Community is the Best Medicine 2019   

Community action project – Youth Champions
Raynaud, I., Ruparell, K., Dutta, N., Maini, A. 
Royal Society of Medicine (RSM), Child Health Promise 2019  

Widening Access to Careers in Primary Care: Findings from the WATCCH Programme
Dutta, N., Chandauka, R., Maini, A., Kumar, S.
Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) Annual Conference 2019   

Improving Access to Primary Care amongst the Homeless Population of Southall
Raines, A., O’ Connor, T. 
British Journal of General Practice (BJGP) Conference 2019   

Social Accountability at Imperial College London School of Medicine – Exploring intra and extra curricula activities
Mollaney, J., Fyfe, M., Douglass, C., McKeown, A., Kumar S. 
Developing Excellence in Medical Education Conference: DEMEC 2019  

The Community Action Project: Medical students leading health improvement projects via societal engagement
Parekh, R., Kumar, S.
Global Community Engaged Medical Education Muster Conference 2018