Learn Experience Advocate, Discover and Serve 2

LEADS is a two-year course intended to provide our students with time in the formal curriculum to immerse themselves in learning, experience and discovery in health equity so that they can develop skills in designing scholarly interventions and innovations now and in their future careers. The LEADS curriculum begins with an overview of health equity and the inequities in health that exist due to factors at the personal, social, political, and other structural levels. The course has students consider the role physicians have in recognizing and addressing adverse social drivers of health and the inequities and injustices that contribute to health disparities. The health equity areas of focus in this course include: Addiction and Health, Community and Environmental Health, Disability and Health, Gender and Sexual Diversity/LGBTQ+ Health, Global and Refugee Health, Homeless Health, Perinatal and Child Health, Racism and Health, Social and Structural Drivers of Health. All areas of focus have a faculty lead(s) who are content experts and deliver core knowledge in the course, provide mentorship and work with students to develop individualized goals. The curriculum also engages students in experiential opportunities to advance their understanding of inequities, their structural causes and how they impact health for patients and communities. Students are introduced to BMC faculty, staff, and community leaders who share solutions and interventions that have led to improved health outcomes. Longitudinally students engage in regular journal clubs highlighting evidence-based interventions related to health equity and are taught scholarly methods to make change including research methods, educational methods, health systems science, community based and advocacy interventions. Finally, students learn ways to disseminate their ideas including through narratives, curricula and other formats. Students are responsible for designing a scholarly project for a potential intervention to address an identified need in their health equity focus area by the completion of the course. As part of this course, students can apply to join a Longitudinal Research Track as part of the Medical Student Research Program and will be mentored in an experience designed for students who want to immerse themselves in research. Students in this track participate in additional required extracurricular hours with their research team outside of the LEADS curriculum.