Do the portraits hanging in medical schools hurt women and minorities?

Our powerful subconscious minds are processing information that we don’t even realize we are taking in, so to achieve gender equity we must actively uncover things that are unintentionally promoting stereotypes. For example, we know that if we want to promote a gender equitable environment that putting portraits of men on the walls of the classrooms would not be ideal. Even if there were one or two women in the mix, this type of tokenism contributes to persistent sexism and gender disparities. Indeed, decorating our medical school educational facilities — entrances, classrooms, lectures halls and teaching hospitals — with portraits of mostly men who are mostly white, is not supportive of women in medicine or our diverse student body — greater than 50 percent of whom currently come from one or more underrepresented groups. As an academic physician who is frequently invited to be a “visiting professor” and lecture at institutions throughout the U.S., I have seen many walls firsthand. For example, at a recent white coat event that took place in a medical school lecture hall auditorium that I was visiting, I watched a first-year class of medical students receive their physician coats for the first time in a ceremony that their parents and loved ones attended. I compared the larger than life paintings on the wall with the smaller real students — the majority of whom were clearly women and/or men of color. I thought to myself about how far we have come since I was a n...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Education Medical school Practice Management Source Type: blogs