“Taking Off the Rose-Colored Glasses”: How Justice-Centered Science Curricula Engages Prehealth Undergraduates' in Critical Consciousness

Abstract

Health disparities rooted in systemic oppression and perpetuated by implicit bias among medical professionals remain pervasive across North America. These inequities are often sustained by providers' limited awareness of social realities that shape the lives of people from marginalized communities. Raising future healthcare practitioners' critical consciousness—the ability to recognize oppressive structures that cause disparities (critical reflection), feeling motivated to challenge them (critical self-efficacy), and taking action to change these circumstances (critical action)—holds promise in addressing healthcare injustice. In this study, undergraduate researchers with lived experience of systemic oppression developed case studies with input from local community partners. These cases were implemented in an upper-division human physiology course that challenged pre-health students to analyze the intersection of physiology, health disparities, and advocacy. Through interviews, findings revealed that students were encouraged to critically reflect and felt confident to act against injustice along a critical consciousness continuum, with the majority describing structural oppression as the root cause of health disparities and motivation to change these circumstances. This attests to the power of justice-centered curricula to foster a more just future in medicine and the potential to cultivate more critically conscious healthcare practitioners.