What does ‘race’ have to do with medical education research?

Abstract

Context We live in a world of ethnoracial conflict. This is confirmed every day by opening and reading the newspaper. This everyday world seems far away in the pages of a medical education journal, but is it? The goal of this paper is to suggest that one need not look very far in medical education to encounter ethnoracial issues, and further, that research methods that are not ethnoracially biased must be employed to study these topics. Discussion We will draw attention to the relevance of employing an ethical conceptual approach to research involving ‘race’ by demonstrating how one author researching internationally educated health professionals has put ‘race’ front and centre in his analysis. He does this by using a postcolonial method of analysis termed a ‘doubled‐research’ technique that sets up categories such as ‘race’ but then decolonizes them to avoid essentialism or stereotyping. We compare this method to another mainstream method employed for the same topic of inquiry which has sidelined ‘race’ in the analysis, potentially hiding findings about ethnoracial relations involving health professionals in our ‘multicultural’ society. This demonstration leads to the important question of whether research methods can be epistemologically racist–a question that has been raised about conventional research on education in general. Our argument is not meant to be the last word on this topic, but the first in this journal. Conclusions We conclude that there is an internal ethics or axiology within research perspectives and methodologies that needs to be examined where ethnoracial issues are prominent. The use of mainstream approaches to undertake research can unintentionally ‘leave unsaid’ central aspects of what is researched while antiracist methods such as the one described in this article can open up the data to allow for a richer and deeper understanding of the problem.

Applying feminist theory to medical education

“…Exclusion of some voices from medical education and research can deepen social and health inequities by rendering the medical profession illequipped to hear and serve the most marginalised. 6,7 Understanding power and privilege has the potential to allow practitioners to connect with their students, humanise their collective practice, and provide better care…”

Dealing with diversity in medical education

“…In this issue of Medical Education , Muzzin and Mickleborough argue that to address these challenges will require us to employ research methods that consider ethnoracial bias. They argue that postcolonial and other anti‐racist approaches are more appropriate than mainstream methods in the study of ethnoracial issues and may yield different results .…”

“…In this issue of Medical Education , Muzzin and Mickleborough argue that to address these challenges will require us to employ research methods that consider ethnoracial bias. They argue that postcolonial and other anti‐racist approaches are more appropriate than mainstream methods in the study of ethnoracial issues and may yield different results . Their argument is consistent with that of Betancourt and Lopez, who, in their frequently cited article on the study of culture, ethnicity and race in American psychology, propose to infuse culture in mainstream research and theory.…”

“…To endorse their argument, Muzzin and Mickleborough provide two examples from the field of internationally trained medical graduates (IMGs). They describe how using mainstream theory led to treating the success of IMG integration as attributable to characteristics of the IMGs’ personalities and ignored the existence of a neocolonial relationship.…”

“…In our opinion, the main message of the article by Muzzin and Mickleborough is that in our work as medical educationalists, whether we are engaged in course design, course delivery or research, we need to be aware of our own bias with reference to our world view, values, ideologies, culture, class and gender and commitment to a particular design or research paradigm. We cannot ignore the issues of ethnicity, race and culture.…”