Health Equity – My Ongoing Journey
By Chris Linares, MD
I suppose I embarked on this path naively in my white, middle class high school when my chosen senior topic was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the civil rights movement. Here I am, almost forty years later, still trying to educate myself, and realizing that educating myself quietly, alone, in private is not going to change a thing.
My personal journey has been enlightening and much, much slower than I’d like to admit, but the most impactful thing I have done is to sign up for the CAFP Health Equity Champions Cohort in 2023. I am proud to be a member of a state academy that has put together such a thoughtful, measured and in-depth introduction to health equity for us all.
“Racism plays a destructive role in our society and contributes to health disparities. Every patient deserves access to care, dignity of treatment and equal health outcomes”
That is the first of many quotes and tidbits I wrote in my journal as I went through this course, and it comes from our own CAFP antiracism statement. This 12-week CME course offers education, practical tools, and community. Each week there are about 2 hours of thoughtfully curated videos, articles, and data links for you to consume on your own time followed by monthly cohort zoom meetings in which we share thoughts, internal struggles, epiphanies and opportunities related to the topics.
I was also co-facilitator for the Spring 2024 cohort with my friend, Dr. Jude Harrison. Revisiting the material brought enhanced insight and again, the monthly zoom meetings were invaluable to processing and understanding varying perspectives. This time I was more focused on planning what is next for me and my family practice.
Curious? Here’s a preview of terms and topics: implicit association, mitigating implicit bias, structural and systemic racism, epigenetics and inherited trauma, somatic abolitionism, using data to reduce disparities, cultural competency, and key dimensions of equity-oriented healthcare. You will be exposed to frameworks to assess healthcare policy through a racial equity lens and county health rankings and roadmaps for building a movement for health equity.
Above all, this is work to be done by family docs together and the CAFP Health Equity Champions course provides you with a community on this journey!
The spring cohort registration is now open! Sign up today!