The REPAIR Project: A Prospectus for Change Toward Racial Justice in Medical Education and Health Sciences Research: REPAIR Project Steering Committee

Abstract

Amidst ongoing efforts to address racial injustice, U.S. medical institutions are grappling with the structural roots of anti-Black racism. The REPAIR (REParations and Anti-Institutional Racism) Project is a 3-year strategic initiative at the University of California, San Francisco aiming to address anti-Black racism and augment the presence and voices of people of color in science, medicine, and health care. The REPAIR Project was designed in response to an unmet need for critical dialogue, cross-disciplinary research, and curriculum development addressing structural racism. It offers a framework for thinking and acting to achieve repair in relation to racial injustice and is anchored by 3 concepts-reparations, abolition, and decolonization-which have been deployed as annual themes in academic years 2020-2021, 2021-2022, and 2022-2023, respectively. The theme of medical reparations builds on the longstanding call for slavery reparations and the paying of debts owed to Black Americans for the harms of slavery. The REPAIR Project focuses on the specific debts owed to Black Americans for racial harm in health care settings. The theme of medical abolition examines the intersections of incarceration, policing, and surveillance in health care and the role of clinicians in furthering or stopping oppressive practices that bind patterns of Black incarceration to health and health care. The theme of decolonizing the health sciences targets "othering" practices entrenched in scientific methodologies that have arisen from colonial-era beliefs and practices around imperialism, including how the colonial-era concept of race contributes to ongoing racial harm. In this article, the authors describe the REPAIR Project, preliminary outcomes from its first year, and potential future lines of inquiry for medical educators and health sciences researchers. The authors argue that the full damage from slavery and its legacies cannot be undone, but everyone can work in new ways that reduce or eliminate harm.