Since its founding, the University of Chicago has regarded free expression as a core value of the institution. This principle has been challenged and debated throughout the University’s history and remains a touchpoint for conversation. Recently, both students and faculty at the Pritzker School of Medicine have spent time exploring free expression through various avenues and engaged across differing perspectives, experiences, and beliefs.
This past year, Pritzker joined eight other U.S. medical schools in a national demonstration project sponsored by the Kern National Network for Flourishing in Medicine (KNN) with a goal of advancing open inquiry and respectful discourse in academic medicine. The program aimed to identify innovative and effective methods and resources for bridging differences and overcoming polarization and culminated this year with a Perspectives in Academic Medicine curriculum for faculty.
Meanwhile, Pritzker students partnered this year with the University of Chicago Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression to foster conversations across diverging viewpoints, hosting a series of dinners with faculty and engaging with the broader university community on topics related to medicine.
Collectively, the efforts demonstrate a continuing tradition of open inquiry and respectful discourse not just at the University but also specifically at Pritzker.
“It’s been exciting to see our students and faculty leaning into sharing their perspectives on a variety of hot topics together,” said Pritzker’s Dean for Medical Education Vineet Arora, MD, MAPP. “The conversations our students and faculty have across differences will only better prepare them to serve our patient population here on the South Side and beyond.”
The student collaboration with the Chicago Forum was led by first-year students Alex Burdzy and Stephan Palm, who serve as co-chairs on the Forum’s student board, which also includes chairs from the University’s other schools. After surveying peers about topics of interest last fall, Burdzy and Palm organized a series of “Pritzker Perspectives” dinners with small groups of students and a faculty member.
In February, the series kicked off with a conversation on protest and students’ responsibilities as future physicians with Pritzker’s Dean of Students Jim Woodruff, MD as the guest discussant. In March, Dr. Julie Oyler from the Department of Medicine joined students for a discussion about having a family in medicine and the evolution of work-life balance in the field across generations.
In May, David Meltzer, MD, PhD, Chief of the Section of Hospital Medicine and Director of the Center for Health and the Social Sciences dined with students to converse on the financialization of healthcare. That conversation set up the series’ culminating event on May 22, a panel event and dinner discussion open to the greater University community.
The event, titled “The Business of Care: Navigating Healthcare in a Financialized Era,” featured panelists from the Booth School of Business, the Department of Public Health Sciences, Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, and the Department of Medicine. A recording of the event is available here.
Burdzy said the partnership with the Forum has allowed for more back-and-forth dialogue that students seek in a setting where lectures are at times seen as the primary format of learning and that creates opportunities for students to challenge their own world views.
“It’s really about us stimulating discussion,” Burdzy said. “The reaction has been very positive. Students want to hear different perspectives. They want to hear other things, even if it can be uncomfortable.”
Burdzy, who also serves as a student representative on Pritzker’s Curriculum Review Committee and the school’s student representative to the AAMC, recalled a conversation in the first-year Clinical Medial Ethics course about abortion that included discussants with strongly differing beliefs. Some students were clearly stepping outside their comfort zone and hearing opinions they weren’t used to, Burdzy said, but they “ultimately really appreciated that and were respectful as well.”
A focus on respectful and effective communication also serves as a foundational principle of Pritzker’s Identity and Inclusion (i2i) Steering Committee, which has since 2018 put on more than a dozen “Civil Discourse” discussions featuring guest speakers from the campus community with differing viewpoints on a specific issue. The events have covered a wide range of topics, including reproductive rights, physician political advocacy, communities and policing, and vaccination.
Last month, the Civil Discourse program, led by Dr. Woodruff, was recognized with a University of Chicago Diversity Leadership Award for its contributions to the University’s mission of promoting diversity of thought, perspective, and experience.
Pritzker’s participation in the KNN initiative was led by Dr. Woodruff and Wei Wei Lee, MD, Associate Dean of Students. Woodruff took part last fall in a panel discussion on supporting learners’ free speech at the Association of American Medical College’s Learn Serve Lead conference in Atlanta.
The KNN program leveraged the organization’s partnership with the Constructive Dialogue Institute (CDI), a national leader in bridging methods, to provide participating schools with a faculty curriculum featuring six lessons aimed at equipping faculty, students, and staff with “the skills and tools needed to find strength in different perspectives and collectively work together to solve pressing challenges in the field.” The student curriculum from the KNN program was integrated into the Personal and Professional Development programming second-year students undertook prior to beginning their clinical rotations this spring.
Other schools participating in the project included Duke University School of Medicine, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at University of Buffalo–SUNY, Paul L. Foster School of Medicine at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center–El Paso, the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, and Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Pritzker will host KNN for a two-day site visit in Chicago this coming fall.