Seed Grant Award: Disrupting the Effects of Racism on Underrepresented in Medicine (URiM) Trainees: Fostering Healing and Agency

This grant aims to assess medical students' experiences of racial trauma and provide solutions by providing students of color who are underrepresented in medicine (URiM) therapeutic and coping skills. Through a series of interactive workshops, this project creates a space for trainees to 1) learn more about existing systems of privilege and oppression, 2) share experiences of being confronted with racism, 3) learn and practice effective ways to disrupt racism as it manifests in their daily lives and within institutions using microaggression response strategies from more experienced peers, and academic literature, and 4) learn resilience strategies to cope with racialized trauma. Additionally, our project provided interested faculty from VP&S and graduate students from the Columbia School of Social Work and Teachers College with tools to lead these workshops and provide a coping resource bank for Columbia students and a toolkit for future groups to replicate the workshops.

This project was funded through the Addressing Racism: A Call to Action for Higher Education initiative of the Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement.