Let's Focus on Racism

"We hear this narrative of a broken system, 'the system is broken, the system is broken, we have to fix it.' And what I remind my students is that the system actually isn't broken. It's doing exactly what it was designed to do. And our job is to create a new one and to build a new one," says Dr. Rachel Hardeman in the latest episode of the Praxis, in the second part of a powerful conversation with host Edwin Lindo.Hardeman, an acclaimed assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, is a health equity researcher who spends a lot of time studying the pervasiveness of race in medical education and the ways to dismantle the structures and the systems that have led to the health inequities we've been discussing in our interviews. She's joined in this episode by Dr. Eduardo Medina, a community health physician who works in a community health clinic in Minneapolis serving a diverse population, and has a practice in obstetrics with an interest in public health, health equity, and particularly around immigrant health and health for the poor and underserved. He does research focused on social determinants of health, racism, community health and chronic disease management. Dr's. Hardeman and Medina offer a frank assessment of the systemic racism pervading our medical system and our schools of medicine, along with a prescription for bringing about the change needed to significantly improve health equity and justice for all.

In a special edition of The Praxis, Edwin Lindo is joined by Dr. Rachel Hardeman and Dr. Eduardo Medina - two phenomenal scholars, researchers and amazing doctors from the University of Minnesota Schools of Medicine and Public Health - to take a hard look at racism in medical education and practice. Dr. Rachel Hardeman is an assistant professor in the Division of Health Policy and Management at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health and is a noted health equity researcher. She studies the impact of race and racism on health outcomes with the focus on moms and babies. Dr. Hardeman spends a lot of time studying the pervasiveness of race in medical education and really thinking about the ways to dismantle the structures and systems that have allowed health inequities to continue and persist in our own country. Dr. Eduardo Medina is a community health doctor who works in a community clinic in Minneapolis and serves a very diverse population of patients, has a practice in obstetrics, interest in public health, health equity (particularly around immigrant health care for poor and underserved communities), does research and focuses on social determinants of health, racism, community health and chronic disease management.

In this episode we will focus on interpersonal racism and examining what it means and how we address it.

In this episode of the Praxis, we build off our conversation in Episode #1 and take a broad look at racism and how it manifests itself in society and medicine. We will lay the framework for how we talk about racism and the different forms it takes. This will help us better understand racism in medicine and beyond.

In this episode, we welcome the community to THE PRAXIS – Connecting Theory and Practice to Achieve Health Justice. This is a podcast focused on addressing race, racism, and the inequities that must be addressed to achieve Health Justice. This episodes explores what the idea of Praxis and then we dive dep into the exploration of Race within the United States: how and when it was created, for what purpose, and how that affects medicine and health outcomes.