For this episode, we are hella excited to interview our beautiful friends Noor Chadha and Aminta Kouyate, medical and graduate students at the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program and founding team members of the Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine.
Together, we talk more with Noor and Aminta about their work demanding and advocating for an anti-racist medicine through their research and student activist efforts. We talk with Noor and Bernie about their recent public launch of their inaugural "Toward the Abolition of Biological Race in Medicine: Transforming Clinical Education, Research, and Practice" (co-authored by Noor, Bernie, Maddy Kane, and Brenly Rowland). We also talk with Aminta about leading a rally and protest through the White Coats 4 Black Lives (WC4BL) Berkeley chapter on demanding that racism be recognized as a public health issue. In addition, we learn more about their work being part of the founding team of the Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine and their philosophy on being a student/community activist alongside the many responsibilities that come with being a student and human!
Read the report at the Institute for Healing and Justice in Medicine website: www.instituteforhealingandjustice.org
WC4BL Berkeley on Instagram: @wc4bl_berkeley
Noor Chadha is a 2nd year med student at the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical Program who strives to integrate compassion, justice, and joy throughout her life and medical career. She is a co-author of Toward the Abolition of Biological Race in Medicine: Transforming Clinical Education, Research, and Practice. Her master's work focuses on youth civic engagement and health. Noor identifies as Sikh, as Punjabi American, as a daughter of Indian immigrants, as a sister, and as a dancer - she performed competitive Bhangra for several years, and who knows, maybe you'll see her make a comeback soon!
Aminta Kouyate is a proud Bay native. Born in Oakland, she is dedicated to eradicating the systems of oppression that create the health disparities for marginalized communities. As a medical student in the UC Berkeley-UCSF Joint Medical program, her research is focused on building an anti-racist medical education curriculum for healthcare providers. She is a reader, a writer, a kitchen magic maker, and a deep believer in laughter and joy. Aminta is dedicated to working towards a fundamental change in the way we practice medicine. She envisions leaving behind a system that separates healing from health and cultivating a new practice learning from community wisdom to center healing, happiness, rest, and justice for all people. She is one of the founding members of the White Coats for Black Lives Chapter at UC Berkeley, a Freedom School for Intersectional Medicine and Health Justice collaborator, a student of the Program in Medical Education for the Urban Underserved (PRIME-US), and most importantly she is a daughter, a sister, a friend, and a co-conspirator to many beloved people.
