Improving access to medical education
About this project
Physicians from low-income backgrounds are more likely to provide care to under-serviced populations. At the same time, medical students from low-income backgrounds have been underrepresented in Canada for 50+ years. I had 2 goals for this project: (1) gather information, (2) do something to help address this problem.
Organization
McMaster University
My Role
Researcher, team lead, MSc student
Team
Team of six: 1 supervisor, 2 committee members, 2 research assistants, 1 MSc student
We asked
- What barriers and facilitators do aspiring physicians from low-income backgrounds face as they work towards medical school admission?
- How might we increase the representation of students from low-income backgrounds in medical school?
We answered with
21 in-depth interviews
with 21 aspiring physicians
2 co-creation workshops
with aspiring physicians and medical school leadership
I ran a mock workshop before carrying out the real thing and tried out two design thinking ideation methods: worst possible idea and braindumping. They got people to become less self-conscious and generate lots of ideas!
Making sense of the data
I created a framework for analysis based on common themes I saw in the literature review. I left room for unexpected findings in the framework so we did not risk missing things that did not neatly fit. We combed through the interview data with qualitative analysis software (MAXQDA) and Microsoft Word to look for common themes, categorizing (or “coding”) relevant data as we came across it.
Our findings
We found that aspiring physicians faced following barriers and facilitators to a career in medicine for aspiring physician:
Sharing our findings
I presented our findings to a variety of stakeholders: researchers, professors, medical school leadership, medical students, and diversity & inclusion advocates at university conferences and talks.
We also presented our findings to study participants and medical school researchers in co-creation workshops.
Finally, we will publish our findings in an academic journal so that a wider audience of stakeholders will have access to information that can inform their decision-making.
Impact & Outcomes
Funding & buy-in
Sharing findings with stakeholders throughout the study allowed me to build rapport. This helped me collaborate with medical school leadership on workshops & funding
Leveling the playing field
The participant workshop allowed study participants to acquire knowledge and connections that can help them overcome some of the hurdles they’re facing
Connecting stakeholders
Participants get a “seat at the table” by having their ideas from the co-creation workshop passed along to med school leadership
Scaleable solutions
The article will provide a framework for addressing under-representation so that people at other schools can have a starting point instead of starting from scratch
Challenges & lessons
No universal experiences
Going in, I didn’t anticipate that there would be so much variation in participant’s experiences of coming from a low-income background. It was a good reminder that a single, universal experience of anything does not usually exist.
Unexpected users
To my surprise, the sample turned out to have many people from a similar citizenship background instead of the variety I expected. This allowed me to “go deep” with this group and taught me to see the opportunities in unexpected circumstances instead of viewing them as problems to be fixed.