Vaseharan (Vassy) Suntharan – Medical Student, Equity Champion, Co-president of SGUL Dermatology Society and Event Lead shares his experience of developing Skin of Colour lecture series.
Skin equity
During my time in medical school, I have been lucky enough to see the work of my peers such as “Mind the Gap” and “Blackandbrownskin.co.uk” by Malone Mukwende. The impact his work had on our ethnically diverse communities still stands to this day, however there is still much to improve. When I attended my 4th Year dermatology lectures, I was heartbroken to notice how there was no equality of skin representation images on the slides. All the images were white with no images of black and brown skin types. This inequity perpetuates inequality of health outcomes.
Collaborative Lecture Series
Upon discussing this with fellow Dermatology Society presidents, they mentioned similar experiences. To provide the teaching I was looking for I put together the Skin of Colour London Lecture series with the help of the SGUL, UCL, King’s, Imperial Bart’s Dermatology Societies and the “Skin of Colour training day” team.
To do this we have produced a total of 9 virtual lectures all accessible via a donation to the British Skin Foundation. The success of the project, as evidenced by the enthusiastic attendance and significant online engagement, demonstrates the demand for more inclusive medical education. We are hoping that this series not only educates healthcare students about the diversity in skin presentations but also encourages students (and staff) to stand up for change and always be curious to learn more to improve patient care. There are always likeminded students and individuals ready to work together to produce the content and teaching you wish you had. We are hoping our fundraiser for the British Skin Foundation allows them to support healthcare professionals to come together to produce research to improve patient healthcare in a similar way.
Advocating Change
If you are a staff member teaching a session, take some time to consider including a diversity of representation that represents all your patients and students. To do this, consider embedding images from Mind the Gap handbook now freely available online (sgul.ac.uk), Welcome to Skin Deep - Skin Deep (dftbskindeep.com)and Blackandbrownskin.co.uk . as well as considering what other resources may be available to you via your professional practice.
We also have amazing notes from our lecture series soon to be found at www.diversedermatology.co.uk
This is an issue impacting all of St George’s programmes. If you are a student, consider some of the advice by Kaundinya and Kundu (2021) to be an advocate for change:
Structural changes instituted by medical student trainees are necessary to complement higher level initiatives to improve equity in skin tone image representation.
If you are aware of any resources the library needs, please request these via Inclusive Resources at St George's (sgul.ac.uk) and talk to your course leaders about what needs to be done.
If you are reading this and considering making a change to inequalities you have noticed, contact the inclusiveeducation@sgul.ac.uk and see what impact you can make. We as students need to be the driving force for change and equality in healthcare.
Written by Vaseharan (Vassy) Suntharan – Medical Student, Equity Champion, Co-president of SGUL Dermatology Society and Event Lead shares his experience of developing Skin of Colour lecture series
Bibliography:
Patricia Louie a et al. (2018) Representations of race and skin tone in medical textbook imagery, Social Science & Medicine. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953618300790 (Accessed: 24 November 2023).
Kaundinya, T. and Kundu, R.V. (2021) Diversity of skin images in medical texts: Recommendations for student advocacy in medical education, Journal of medical education and curricular development. Available at: Diversity of Skin Images in Medical Texts: Recommendations for Student Advocacy in Medical Education - PubMed (nih.gov) (Accessed: 24 November 2023).