Grant: Doctoral Award - Frederick Banting and Charles Best Canada Graduate Scholarships

Health professional education (HPE), an upstream element of our health system, is understudied and few effective reforms have been made in recent years. While there are notable pockets of innovation the uptake of health equity perspectives in HPE has been limited. The specific aim of this research project is to address the gap in curriculum and pedagogy for medical and nursing (MedNurs) education in Canada. In the context of recent calls by international organizations for the greater incorporation of equity-oriented perspectives, this project contributes to research on a vital stage of health systems planning. To study this complex issue the project will employ a qualitative design using interview and ethnographic research methods. Interviews will be conducted with a purposive sample of 40-50 key informants and stakeholders across two Canadian universities and inquire about strategies, difficulties, and excellence in health equity, patient-oriented care, and cultural safety in MedNurs teaching and mentorship. Observations in MedNurs classrooms will provide evidence for how these concepts are taken up in practice. The aim of the project is to understand if and how curriculum designers, teachers, and administrators in HPE take up critical advancements in theories of health equity when preparing students for practice. Analysis of the data collected in this study will inform the development of a pedagogical framework, constructed with input from the MedNurs community and practice guidelines from HPE and higher education literature. The findings, framework, and subsequent knowledge translation will impact our collective goal of reducing health inequity experienced by vulnerable populations in Canada and beyond. Policy-makers and educators will use the results of this project to increase the capacity of emerging health professionals to attend to global inequities that cut across race, Indigeneity, socio-economic class, sex/gender, ability and other social relations.