Oral history as reparatory practice for health professions: an ethic of epistemic justice

From burnout to social determinants of health, contemporary healthcare challenges require greater integration of the social sciences and humanities to address. Many key healthcare challenges can be conceptualized as forms of epistemic injustice, in which a person's knowing of lived experience are dismissed or made illegible. Oral history is a longstanding field with methods designed to foster collaborative discussion and support sharing of lived experiences, with great potential for intervening in epistemic harms. Existing applications of oral history to healthcare fields have been beneficial but limited. We call for and sketch expanded possibilities for advancing the use of oral history as a distinct tool in health professions education, research, and practice in ways that humanize responses to, and repair epistemic harm for, patients and clinicians alike. In this article we (1) summarize existing applications, (2) introduce key oral history concepts and methods to guide future applications, and (3) describe three project cases that illustrate these concepts in practice. We use these case studies to sketch three avenues for the development of expanded applications of oral history in health professions: oral history pedagogy for communication skills training; oral history content as part of HPE content curriculum and listening practices; and oral history as method in community engagement and research. We advocate for further exploration of oral history's potential applications, introducing oral history as the next field joining the vibrant umbrella of the health humanities.