Content and language
Diversifying the content of our curriculum is an important facet of inclusive practice.
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The University of St Andrews’ library compiled an anti-racism resource list in April 2020 and continues to update the resource list regularly.
The resource list contains books tackling racism and white supremacy by a range of authors, including Reni Eddo-Lodge, Ijeoma Oluo and Layla F Saad, which are available through the St Andrews’ University library. The resource list contains books, podcasts, films and other media.
Departments within the University have since drafted anti-racist reading lists, for example, the University’s School of Modern Languages compiled a resource list entitled “Anti-racism, black lives matter and decolonisation beyond the English -speaking world”.
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The University’s School of Medicine utilise a book entitled ‘Mind the gap: a handbook of clinical signs in Black and Brown skin’ by Mukwende, Tamony and Turner.
This book is designed to help academics and clinicians teach students to recognise signs and symptoms on darker skin tones, to help mitigate the risk of misdiagnosis. The book features images of conditions on black and brown skin tones, which have been historically omitted in teaching.
The University of St Andrews uses this resource during clinical teaching and practice. The book is accessible via the St Andrews library, as an e-book.
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The University’s School of Medicine diversified the type of manikins used during clinical skills sessions, in addition to the historically white manikins, the School have ordered manikins of different skin tones for use during demonstration.
In instances where models are unavailable the school have ordered ‘skins’ in different skin tones, which can be used in conjunction with existing structures and manikins. For example, the school have purchased:
- standard venipuncture arms in a darker skin tone for demonstration of various procedures including venipuncture, IV cannulation and IV infusion training
- male rectal examination trainers in a darker skin tone
- clinical female pelvic trainers in a darker skin tone
- advanced breast examination trainers in a darker skin tone
The manufacturing companies that the University uses are:
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The School of Medicine has volunteer patient partners who are experts at living with their medical conditions, the patients work in partnership with the University and work collaboratively with St Andrews’ medical students.
Patient Partners are individuals who meet with small groups of medical students in an informal setting to assist with their medical training. These volunteers, living with a condition, are the experts; they know what the symptoms feel like and how that condition affects their lives. Sharing this personal experience gives the medical students an insight that they could not gain from textbooks or lectures. Patient Partners are highly valued and integral to the training of the next generation of medical professionals. Patient Partners have a condition from which the medical students can learn. No specialist knowledge is required by the patients and all sessions are facilitated by clinical members of staff.
The School of Medicine uses patient partners and simulated patients as part of the student’s clinical skills and communication skills training. These patients help the students further their training and prepare them for their future careers. Generally, the volunteer partners that the University attracted were white, retired academics. In recognition that this is not representative of the student body or of the local communities that students will be working in once qualified, the School embarked on outreach activity to diversify the patient partner bank and volunteer patients from which to choose, to ensure greater representation and diversity in terms of age, gender and race.
We want our students to be able to see themselves in their patient partners and simulated patients and improve our curriculum diversity. This change is also needed to ensure that we are preparing our students fully for their future careers and have had experience diagnosing different medical conditions that may affect certain ethnic groups disproportionately. We recognise how important this is, as highlighted at present by the Covid-19 pandemic.
From a communication skills perspective, the simulated patient programme provides an introductory experience for students to practice communication skills. Simulated patients act out a particular role or character allowing students to respond appropriately. They are provided with a scenario rather than a script and are expected to act in the manner of the role they have been provided with.
The School fostered a relationship with NHS Fife to recruit volunteer patients, in addition to broadly recruiting from NHS Fife, the School have also taken a targeted approach to recruiting volunteers, so they have approached: