MedRACE FAQs

Our work is project based and as such apart from co-chairs and social media, there are no set roles within MedRACE. If there is a project you would like to do, we will do our best to facilitate that!

We do however, have standing annual projects that are at our core of what we do. These are:

• Active bystander training for medical students and patient-carer groups
• Induction training with regards to a more racially inclusive curriculum
• Decolonising the Curriculum SSCs
• International Women’s Day events
• Black History month collaborations
• Policy changes in both pre-clinical (e.g. HALO code) and clinical settings, such as inclusive theatre headwear and wearing the kara in theatre

Including but not at all limited to:

Students: get involved with project ideas, testing products (such as inclusive theatre headwear), participating in research and focus groups, hosting events, teaching and developing lesson plans, social media running, SSCs, conferences, open days

Staff: research, project recruitment, audits, discussion groups, SSCs

Externals: collaboration, conferences, projects and events

Of course; our meetings are held on MS Teams, at 5.30-6.30 pm on the first Thursday of every month.

If you are a UoL student or staff member, email us at medrace@le.ac.uk, or contact Dr Shameq Sayeed/Prof Kate Williams to be added to the mailing list and therefore have an invite automatically to each meeting. You can also join the MedRACE whatsapp group for more regular updates and opportunities for research and teaching etc. 

If you are from outside of UoL, please email medrace@le.ac.uk, and if you would like to present at a meeting please let us know and we will add you to the agenda!

One of MedRACE’s big projects is decolonising the curriculum, usually achieved through SSCs where a student will work with a faculty member to review and make recommendations. However, we recognise that this model isn’t a one size fits all, and faculty members may not want the commitment of an SSC, nor rely on waiting for these to come around. Additionally, we recognise that there is already an awarding gap in UK ethnic minority students, and it is more often than not these students who undertake the decolonising work. It is important that faculty members recognise this, and that they may want to commence review of their curriculum independently. 

For non-medical subjects, Dr Paul Campbell has worked with the University centrally to develop a Racially Inclusive Curriculum Toolkit, which is accessible online.
For medicine, we recognise that the original toolkit did not always apply to medicine as a subject, and so we have developed a Medicine-specific Racially Inclusive Curriculum Toolkit, due to be released in 2023.

For more information about this, please get in touch with Dr Shameq Sayeed. Please be aware that medical students do a 3 week SSC at the end of Y3, and then Y5 have the option to undertake an SSC in place of an elective over 6 weeks in May time, and so a degree of notice is required so that we can advertise the projects in time.

If you are in Y3, the project booklet will be made available to you in due course, and you would preference and rank your choices along with other SSC projects as usual. Please note a place is not guaranteed, and number of students accepted are dependent on how many unit leads are willing to get involved.
If you are in Y5, then please contact Dr Rich Kitten directly, as this is independently organised.

Please email us at medrace@le.ac.uk. Most likely, we will invite you to attend a meeting where you can ask us and our students questions, or invite us to a meeting at your institution, where we can present or answer questions that way.

MedRACE is not a society, rather a staff-student working group. As such, we do not receive any grants from the SU, nor have formal memberships and membership fees. We also do not hold any sponsorship contracts. 

If you would like to be a part of MedRACE, even just to listen or give opinions on ideas, then you can join our whatsapp group and our mailing list.

We aim to have a section on our website specifically for this, as this is certainly something that we champion and advertise internally. To be the first to hear about these schemes, it is best to join our Whatsapp group. At the end of every monthly meeting we also have a small round up of upcoming conferences, scholarships and opportunities.

Yes! Whilst MedRACE was born from work towards eradicating racial harassment and inequality, we recognise intersectionality and always keen to work with specific groups that recognise other protected characteristics. Additionally, our active bystander training is pulled from real life scenarios that have happened to our students, and we use a variety of examples of discrimination, such as disability, homophobia and gender-based discrimination.