You might have wondered why the Yale Department of Psychiatry’s newly minted second-year residents were seen wearing black headbands with colorful shapes around their foreheads during orientation in the beginning of July.
The headbands were worn during the introductory session of the human experience track of the residency program’s new social justice and health equity curriculum.
The residents wore the headbands during a session designed to generate thought and discussion on alterity, implicit bias, intersectionality, and group dynamics. This introductory session served as the launching point for several subsequent sessions spread throughout the residents’ training.
The human experience track aims to create impactful training experiences that help residents learn concepts from the social sciences and humanities relevant for recognizing, understanding, and addressing marginalization in health care. The track is a part of a boarder social justice and health equity curriculum that also includes tracks on advocacy and structural competency.
These innovations in the curriculum aim to equip residents with the information and tools necessary to become leaders in addressing health care disparities.
This year’s introductory activity was created by Andrea Diaz Stransky, MD, a resident in the Albert J. Solnit Integrated Training Program, who led the session with third-year residents Lily Balasuriya, MD, MMS, and Ariel Sloan, MD.