As their time in med school comes to a close, Med-4 students Krislia Cunningham, BSc’17, and Léanne Roncière (pictured above from left to right with a pre-pandemic class photo) are looking back at their four years—the skills they’ve gained, the advocacy work they’ve accomplished and the distinct identity their class has forged. As they help prepare a parting gift for those to follow in their footsteps, the period also has them and their fellow graduating students looking to the future.
The Medicine senior class gift represents a tradition whereby Med-4 students make their first collective philanthropic gift via the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS) to support a project that is important to them, and that has a tangible impact on current and future students. It begins their legacy at the University.
This year, the Class of 2021 has created a new fund for future BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) students in the undergraduate medical education program. Roncière and Cunningham would like the fund, which will be administered by the WELL Office, to sustain one to two bursaries per year for medical students identifying as BIPOC undertaking projects that support equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI). The two hope the projects will spur further Faculty-level initiatives.
“It has the potential to make a difference and a better environment for our future colleagues,” says Class President Roncière.
The FMHS has been working on several fronts to address underrepresentation within its student body, with the goal of ensuring it reflects the populations they will serve. Through its outreach efforts, it has made progress in attracting more students whose family income is lower than the provincial average and those from small population centres to apply. This is also true for Black students, whose numbers were strong in 2017 and 2018, waned in 2019, and were back to goal levels in 2020. Between 2009 and 2020, the average number of Black students admitted per year has been three to four, with some years experiencing lower numbers.
The Indigenous Health Professions Program has been working to recruit qualified Indigenous individuals to the health professions programs, with the 2018 MDCM class numbers meeting the target in 2021 after several years with low numbers.
“There is still work to be done,” says Roncière.
“I would also add regarding representation of Black medical students that the Faculty’s target is often below the provincial population share and further below the Montreal population share. Similar discrepancies are seen for admissions of Indigenous students,” says Cunningham.
Cunningham has been involved in several advocacy initiatives. She has introduced several Black high school students to the prospect of studying medicine and health sciences at Ă山ǿĽé, as well as having made strides on an anti-racism curriculum review (One example has been the recent changes to the Dermatology course that now ensure lectures represent more non-white skin types). She echoes her classmate’s hopes that these donations will make a difference. “This gift has the potential to make medical education more inclusive, which will translate into better quality of care down the line.”
The organizers hope to raise $5,000 from the class of 180 students. A generous donor has offered to match some of the funds.
The two students’ reminiscences of their time in med school coalesce around the topic of giving, not just in the philanthropic sense but in the generosity they witnessed from their fellow students in the way they cared for patients.
“It’s a collection of small moments of compassion and empathy that make me feel most inspired by colleagues,” explains Roncière. “For example, during a ward-based rotation, my colleague would arrive at the hospital earlier than she needed to, just to print out crosswords for one of her patients. Another time, during an extremely busy rotation, I witnessed another taking time to call an elderly patient’s landlord to make sure they wouldn’t be penalized for paying rent late. On another day, a student in our class stayed at the hospital an extra hour after a long shift to play cards with a lonely gentleman.”
Roncière says her class collectively feels a sense of belonging and that it comes from shared experiences during these unique and unprecedented times. “It’s certainly made us feel more connected to each other, and although it’s physically more difficult, if not impossible, to meet and socialize, I think we’ve remained quite connected because we're going through these things together.”
For Cunningham, studying medicine during COVID has meant finding joy in simple things. “Just running into each other in the hospital after being distant for so long means a lot. It’s the value of those little moments. I appreciate them more in these times.”
On whether the pandemic has shaped how she will practice medicine, Roncière says it’s allowed her to see interprofessionalism at work, especially at the CHSLDs (long-term seniors’ residences), where she and many of her classmates worked during a three-month hiatus at the beginning of the pandemic. “That opened my eyes to how different members of a team function in a setting that we’re not used to working in.”
Cunningham says members of their Med-4 cohort have overwhelmingly supported this specific class gift idea and that this initiative caps off nicely the conversations and the advocacy work for racialized students already having taken place: “This gift is part of making sure that that conversation continues.”