Monica Hahn, MD, MPH, MS, AAHIVS, CAFP’s 2021 Educator of the Year
It’s Time to Challenge Race-Based Medicine As you may be aware, a national movement to challenge structural racism in medicine is gaining momentum. At my home institution, SF General Hospital, race-based eGFR reporting was eliminated in 2019. In 2020, following a successful petition effort, we were able to abolish racebased eGFR reporting at affiliated UCSF laboratories and medical centers. Many other institutions have since followed suit. Today I’d like to answer some of the many questions my colleagues and I have received from physicians all over the country about pushing for systems change at their own institutions by sharing some invaluable resources. First and foremost, I’m proud to share a valuable resource: the Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine (IHJM): https://www.instituteforhealingandjustice.org/,
Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine fosters a space for vibrant dialogue and debate, consciousnessraising, and movement building, seeking to sharpen our collective analysis and develop methods to critique structures of power in medicine through community scholarship and solidarity.
an advocacy epicenter and dialogue space centered on uplifting social justice and community activism in medicine and public health. UCSF student co-founders of the IHJM published a 50-page report, “ Towards the Abolition of Biological Race in Medicine Transforming Clinical Education, Research, and Practice”, documenting history of the various manifestations of structural racism in healthcare lurking in our commonplace clinical algorithms and calculators. The IHJM was launched in May of 2020 in response to the growing attention to the many flawed uses of race-based medicine that were coming to light, and was elevated by the publication of this report. I am proud to be a co-founder of IHJM with these health justice colleagues and advocates. IHJM’s mission centers around publishing and uplifting perspectives (narratives, experiences, research, and other works) related to healing, social justice, and community activism in Western medicine and public health. IHJM fosters a space for vibrant dialogue and debate, consciousnessraising, and movement building, seeking to sharpen our collective analysis and develop methods to critique structures of power in medicine through community scholarship and solidarity. Through IHJM’s movement building efforts, we have held multiple teach-ins and conference speaking events, we have launched several national petitions to abolish race-based eGFR, we have created a crowd-sourced eGFR advocacy toolkit to help catalyze institutions across the nation to eliminate race-correction from eGFR. IHJM is currently hosting multiple interdisciplinary national working groups that are aimed at dismantling structural racism in medicine. Our national working groups have now expanded to include eGFR, ASCVD, PFTs, and reproductive health. Over 300 people have signed up to participate in our working groups, and we are always accepting more members to join. We are also in the process of building a Health Justice Library and Repository. We aim to bridge, share, and amplify continued on next page California Family Physician Summer 2021
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