Abstract
BackgroundPost-apartheid, South Africa adopted an inclusive education system that was intended to be free of unfair discrimination. This qualitative study examines the experiences and perceptions of racial discrimination between Emergency Medical Care (EMC) students, clinical mentors, and patients within an Emergency Medical Service (EMS) during clinical practice. Understanding the nature of such discrimination is critical for redress.MethodsWithin the conceptual framework of Critical Race Theory, critical ethnographic methodology explored how discriminatory social practice manifests during clinical practice. Semi-structured interviews enabled thematic analysis. We purposively sampled 13 undergraduate EMC students and 5 Emergency Care (EC) providers.ResultsEMC student participants reported experiences of racial and gender discrimination during work-integrated learning (WIL) as they were treated differently on the basis of race and gender. Language was used as an intentional barrier to isolate students from the patients during WIL because EC providers would intentionally speak in a language not understood by the student and failed to translate vital medical information about the case. This conduct prevented some students from engaging in clinical decision-making.ConclusionsUnfair discrimination within the pre-hospital setting have an impact on the learning opportunities of EMC students. Such practice violates basic human rights and has the potential to negatively affect the clinical management of patients, thus it has the potential to violate patient’s rights. This study confirms the existence of discriminatory practices during WIL which is usually unreported. The lack of a structured approach to redress the discrimination causes a lack of inclusivity and unequal access to clinical education in a public clinical platform.
Highlights
Post-apartheid, South Africa adopted an inclusive education system that was intended to be free of unfair discrimination
Theme 1: uncovering an Emergency Care (EC) provider’s gender constraints Historically, the Emergency Medical Care (EMC) profession has been dominated by male EC providers
Key themes were interpreted through a Critical Race Theory (CRT) lens to understand how discrimination manifests during work-place learning in the pre-hospital setting and how students and Emergency Care providers navigate this tense atmosphere of discrimination
Summary
Post-apartheid, South Africa adopted an inclusive education system that was intended to be free of unfair discrimination. This qualitative study examines the experiences and perceptions of racial discrimination between Emergency Medical Care (EMC) students, clinical mentors, and patients within an Emergency Medical Service (EMS) during clinical practice. In my Bachelor of Technology in Emergency Medical Care (BTech EMC) undergraduate research project, racial discrimination was one of the themes that emerged as participants shared their experiences in clinical practice. Through the theoretical framework of Critical Race Theory, this study documents the existence and extent of racial (and other) discrimination within the Emergency Medical Service (EMS) in South Africa. Phiri and Matambo [3] argue for the use of ‘Fanonian analysis’ in that the credibility given to the conception of race has been overrated, as the argument associated with the conception of race or racism gave it an ontological significance, making ‘race’ a standard factor to decide who is human and who is not
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Topics from this Paper
Work-integrated Learning
Framework Of Critical Race Theory
Emergency Medical Care
Discriminatory Practice
Perceptions Of Racial Discrimination
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