Nurturing Children's Mental Health Body and Soul: Confronting American Child Psychiatry's Racist Past to Reimagine Its Antiracist Future

Teaching the Legacy of Slavery in American Medicine and Psychiatry to Medical Students: Feasibility, Acceptability, Opportunities for Growth

Introduction

Understanding the legacy of slavery in the United States is crucial for engaging in anti-racism that challenges racial health inequities' root causes. However, few medical educational curricula exist to guide this process. We created a workshop illustrating key historical themes pertaining to this legacy and grounded in critical race theory.

Methods

During a preclinical psychiatry block, a second-year medical school class, divided into three groups of 50-60, attended the workshop, which comprised a 90-minute lecture, 30-minute break, and 60-minute small-group debriefing. Afterwards, participants completed an evaluation assessing self-reported knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, and satisfaction with the workshop.

Results

One hundred eighty students watched the lecture, 15 attended small-group debriefings, and 132 completed the survey. Seventy-six percent (100) reported receiving no, very little, or some prior exposure to the legacy of slavery in American medicine and psychiatry. Over 80% agreed or strongly agreed that the workshop made them more aware of this legacy and that the artwork, photographs, storytelling, and media (videos) facilitated learning. Qualitative feedback highlighted how the workshop improved students' knowledge about the legacy of slavery's presence in medicine and psychiatry. However, students criticized the lecture's scripted approach and requested more discussion, dialogue, interaction, and connection of this history to anti-racist action they could engage in now.

Discussion

Though this workshop improved awareness of the legacy of slavery, students criticized its structure and approach. When teaching this legacy, medical schools should consider expanding content, ensuring opportunities for discussion in safe spaces, and connecting it to immediate anti-racist action.

The Color of Child Protection in America: Antiracism and Abolition in Child Mental Health

This article illuminates the color of child protection by exposing the risks of racist and white supremacist harm intrinsic to the child welfare, public education, and juvenile injustice systems, specifically when they intersect with the child mental health system. Relying on bold and radical frameworks, such as abolition, critical race theory, and decolonization, it positions child mental health providers to confront the color of child protection while protecting minoritized children against these systems of harm. These frameworks inspire a daily antiracist practice whereby child mental health providers challenge racist inequities and the historical arcs driving them; protect minoritized children and families against the systems of care designed to harm them; and work toward the longer-term goal of abolishing these systems altogether. In a white supremacist society, child mental health providers have no choice but to engage in such antiracist practices in order to uphold their fundamental oath to first do no harm. The failure to do so amounts to negligence and malpractice.