The forest and the trees: Theorizing a Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy for medical education

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The explicit purpose of medical education is frequently defined as to educate and train physicians who can serve as leaders in providing high-quality, equitable health care for society. Hidden in this explicit purpose is an implicit premise of extraction: those who become physicians are valuable assets who must be separated from society and assimilated into their roles as leaders. Applying Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies as a lens, the authors use Story Cycle methodology to weave personal and literature-based narratives that illuminate, interrogate, and challenge extraction. Finally, they imagine alternative, non-extractive, possibilities for medical education. In doing so, the authors articulate Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy for medical education. • Medical education has an implicit premise: physicians are assets to be extracted. • The authors use Story Cycle to explore and challenge extraction. • They then imagine alternative possibilities for medical education. • In doing so, a Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy for medical education is articulated.