Tokenism = "the practice of making only a perfunctory or symbolic effort to be inclusive to members of minority groups, especially by recruiting people from underrepresented groups in order to give the appearance of racial or sexual equality within a workforce” https://twitter.com/schulichmeddent/status/1298994175346700288

Isn’t it wild that our institutions think that simply admitting a more diverse class of students will solve systemic racism? Not to mention that this post makes ZERO reference to the admission of indigenous students—arguably the most dangerous inequity in Canadian healthcare.

Until we completely dismantle + rebuild medical education from the ground up, moves like these risk putting already marginalized populations into systems designed to oppress and persecute.

An important addendum: I’m pretty cynical these days. I also am very privileged. As such, I think it is key to acknowledge that I do not have the knowledge nor lived experience to fully comprehend how these changes will affect medical learners in the long-term.

Instead, what I hope to impress upon those that read this thread is not that these changes are necessarily bad. Rather, I urge all of our institutions to think carefully about how changes like this are implemented to ensure we do not create more problems than we solve.

And for crying out loud, please stop sharing diversity statistics without an acknowledgment that we have a LONG way to go. I’m not one for an applause until the show is over and done.

After all, systemic racism is a behemoth problem to solve. We must ensure that we act synchronously at all levels of institutional power in order to create change that is indeed positive.