Who Can Help: The Rhetoric of Closing the Health Equity Gap

Abstract

The most prominent way to truly learn the field of medicine is through real, hands-on work in the field (Cindrea, 2025). Doctors build on their practical skills and experiences best when in these settings. With hands-on experience being so prominent and influential, this would be an extremely meaningful way for medical schools to allow their medical students to best learn how social determinants of health directly affect marginalized communities and their health outcomes. This could be implemented into the curriculum in a variety of ways. For example, medical schools could establish a community-service hour requirement in which the students must spend a certain amount of time each month meaningfully serving an underserved community. As for another idea, medical schools could administer certain clinical rotations for doctors to do in clinics that are designed specifically for low-income families or a hospital in a low-income area. In each of these cases medical school students would learn to effectively understand, communicate with, and treat marginalized communities.