EDI Initiatives
The Medical Students' Association Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (MSA EDI) portfolio was established in 2021 to promote equity, diversity, inclusion, and human rights for all students, especially those from equity-deserving, underrepresented, and historically-marginalized backgrounds. The portfolio operates according to principles of anti-oppression and aims to represent student voices at the faculty level and communicate EDI-related information from faculty to fellow students. The EDI team comprises the Vice President EDI, EDI Councillors, EDI Lunch Talk Lead, MSA Health Equity Conference Leads, as well as student representatives from the following equity-deserving groups: Accessibility and Inclusivity in Medicine (AIM), Black Medical Students’ Association (BMSA), Indigenous Medical & Dental Students’ Association (IMDSA), Jewish Medical Students’ Association (JMSA), MD AIDE, MD Ambassadors, Muslim Medical Students’ Association (MMSA), Rural Medicine Group, Sexuality & Gender Advocacy Committee, Women in Medicine and Surgery (WIMAS).
1. Gender-Inclusive Spaces:
- Katz all-gender bathrooms: advocacy and follow up with Dr. Lewis over several months regarding signage changes and renovations
- Results: signage changes indicating all-gender washrooms - renovations scheduled for summer and fall 2023; larger university-wide pilot project for renovations across campus
- AHS all-gender bathrooms: started a collaboration with AHS EDI and communications folks to develop a map/list of gender inclusive bathrooms and changing spaces in AHS facilities
- All-gender changing spaces: installed a privacy curtain in overflow/gender-inclusive locker room; scrubs receptacle installed
2. Multi-Faith Prayer Space:
- Ramadan 2022: partnered with IMDSA and IHIP to share Indigenous meeting space
- Ramadan 2023: in the process of finding a (permanent) space for Ramadan 2023; potential approval of a temporary DL room for midday prayers
- Ongoing talks at the college of health-sciences level to secure a space
3. MSA Health Equity Conference:
- Identified EDI-related gaps in MD program curriculum and conceptualized an annual Health Equity Conference to address these limitations
- Recruited a team of conference leads
- Supported the conference leads in the organization of the first (theme: migrant, refugee, and newcomer health) and second (theme: disability and neurodiversity) MSA Health Equity Conferences
- Partnered with faculty and the Refugee Health Coalition to advocate for curricular change and instructional time on this important underrepresented subject area
- Secured funding for the conference from grants and community partners
- In the process of applying for funding and recruiting a team for the 2024 Health Equity Conference
4. Trauma Informed Care (TIC):
- Began with advocacy meetings with various faculty members to pitch the importance of TIC and gain interest
- Worked with fellow student leaders to plan and run a successful TIC panel event that later became a model for a formal curricular panel event for second-year students
- Collaborated with faculty members to plan and roll-out the TIC curriculum
- Initiated a collaboration with faculty and colleagues to undertake research related to the role out of the TIC curriculum – submitted abstract to AMEE 2023
- Created a list of TIC "do’s and don’ts" for MD students for OSCEs
5. EDI Curricular Reporting Form:
- Collaborated with faculty to determine the appropriate process for delivering feedback to block coordinators/lecturers about EDI-related concerns that arise in various curricular components
- Navigated challenges and barriers to implementation ultimately resulting in the successful development of a collaborative project with program faculty
- Created end-of-block reports for each blocks and submitted them to the faculty for discussion at end-of-block meetings
- Created summary reports for distribution to students
- Created an EDI checklist for lecturers based on common themes from the reporting form
- Faculty indicated interest rolling out a similar form process in the clerkship program
6. Standardized Patient Program:
- Advocated for increased diversity in the standardized patients that are used for physical exams and OSCEs, by meeting with folks from the standardized patient program
7. MD Admissions:
- Met with Dr. Stovel to learn about the EDI-related initiatives involved in admissions and gave feedback about the admissions process from an EDI student perspective
8. Multi-Faith Diversity Calendar:
- Advocated for and developed a multi-faith diversity calendar that was provided to the faculty so that they can avoid scheduling mandatory in-person sessions on important dates in different religions and cultures
9. Psychological Safety:
- Inclusion of questions to assess psychological safety of small-group learning environments on evaluation forms in response to student feedback
- Initial roll-out was in DL forms, but we have advocated for this to be included in all small-group evaluation forms - this was later implemented