by Laurel B. Witt, M.D., MPhil | February 4, 2022 Article Citation: Zaidi Z, Partman IM, Whitehead CR, Kuper A, Wyatt TR. Contending with our racial past in medical education: a Foucauldian perspective. Teaching and learning in medicine 2021; 33(4):453-462. DOI: 10.1080/10401334.2021.1945929 What is this article about? In this invited article, the authors employ Foucauldian notions of power, knowledge, and normalization to lay bare the sometimes-hidden racist practices and processes that shape how medical students are prepared (or not prepared), admitted (or not admitted), included (or excluded), and trained in medical school and beyond. Medical education, the authors argue, as it wrestles with its own systemic racism, should more deeply examine its norms and modes of normalization (of acceptance, belonging, behavior, and professional identity formation). The deeply embedded hierarchy inherent in medicine is called out as a process that socializes student doctors into the “right kind of physician.” These hierarchy and socialization processes have served a purpose, they posit, one that has upheld the social contract medicine has with society, because they uphold expectations about the “right kind of physician.” They also, however, entrench racism in the medical education system and have stymied efforts to decrease racial inequity in training. Why should you read the article? Medical educators have great interest in decreasing racial inequity in medicine. The authors acknowledge this interest, and the article gives a helpful frame to any medical educator interested in this work. A few of the efforts that have failed to reverse racial inequity are discussed, such as cultural competency and diversity programming, and some efforts that have been more effective are also named, like AAMC affirmative action policy. Still the authors return to a Foucauldian perspective: curricular and procedural changes go only so far. Racist power structures still exist, because we have not interrogated the deeper norms and modes of normalization that entrench racism in the system. The authors call for a radical dismantling. They describe potential strategies around curriculum change, advocacy, hiring, and hierarchy disruption. How can you use this article? The most valuable parts of this article come from its early background sections. In these earlier sections, the authors inspire us to recall what we learned in University about Foucault and help us see how a Foucauldian lens might refocus the ways we are looking at racism in medical education. We are given a new frame which might inspire greater innovation and justice-making. Especially at a time when assessment in medicine is changing (Step 1 and Step 2 CK), we might use the perspective put forth in this article to help us radically rethink the system of student acceptance, discrimination, and training. Review Author: Laurel B. Witt, MD, MPhil; Associate Professor and Director of Medical Student Education, Department of Family Medicine & Community Health—Kansas City, University of Kansas School of Medicine, Kansas City, KS. ACE Membership Organization: Society of Teachers of Family MedicineContending with Our Racial Past in Medical Education: A Foucauldian Perspective