Epistemology, culture, justice and power: non-bioscientific knowledge for medical training

Abstract

There is a definable body of SSH knowledge that forms the academic underpinning for important physician competencies and is outside the experience of most medical educators. Curricular change incorporating such content is necessary if we are to strengthen the non-Medical Expert physician competencies. Our findings, particularly our cross-cutting themes, also provide a pedagogically useful mechanism for holistically teaching the underpinnings of physician competence. We are now implementing our findings into medical curricula.

Critically reflective practice and its sources: A qualitative exploration

“…As critical reflection requires an acceptance of personal experience as a source of knowledge, an epistemology of practice may be a prerequisite to its development . Health professions education can potentially diminish personal and experiential sources of learning in its prioritisation of objectivity . If HPE wishes to foster critical reflection or reflective practice, it may need to ensure that admissions, curricula, assessments and faculty staff each commit to allowing philosophical space for personal and informal experience to influence one's learning and practice.…”

“…Given these theoretical assertions, the health professional roles of advocate, collaborator, communicator and professional, and goals such as compassionate care or systems‐based practice, may benefit from critical reflection as a basic underlying capability or critically reflective practice as an approach for practice in indeterminacy. Related research supports this assertion; for example, clinicians who became hospitalised developed lenses consistent with critical reflection and this, in turn, engendered more compassionate orientations towards care .…”

Back from basics: integration of science and practice in medical education

“…Instead, there is a need for a more nuanced conceptualisation of science that incorporates a broader knowledge base to account for these broader competencies . A recently published framework of the ‘non‐bioscientific knowledge’ that underpins a range of clinical competencies highlights this point . For example, interacting in a culturally safe manner with indigenous communities and similarly structurally marginalised groups requires an understanding of several fundamental social constructs and an overview of their underlying theoretical bases.…”

Preaching to the choir? Sociodemographic differences in medical students’ evaluation of an undergraduate diversity training module

“…Such barriers do not only stand in the way of effective health care, but are also problematic from a value-based perspective: equitable access to care is a human right. Actively facilitating marginalized groups in the pursuit and enactment of this right is a core responsibility of a socially just medical system and society [1], and should therefore be sustainably integrated in both graduate and undergraduate education [6][7][8][9][10].…”