"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.