LIST OF DEMANDS

I. Reforming the Academic Curriculum
1. College of Medicine Curriculum
1.1. Educational Objectives: Include and abide by commitments to anti-racism and dismantling eurocentric frameworks in the medical program’s overall educational objectives and mission statement.
1.2. Revise Learning Objectives (LOs): Integrate learning objectives related to
Social Determinants of Health (SDH), anti-racist healthcare, cultural humility,
structural racism, and racism as a healthcare and public health crisis into every curricular activity in Foundations of Medicine and in Core Clinical Medicine. Every session that has a learning objective must incorporate at least one of these new LOs, including but not limited to PBL cases, clinical skills sessions, formatives, TBLs, histology, and anatomy. These new SDH-based LOs should be represented in formative and summative examinations.
1.3. Eliminate Race-Based Science: Review and revise all race-based science in all curricular content in Foundations and in clerkships.
1.4. Replace Orientation Service Learning Activity: Replace the service learning activity from orientation week with a required longitudinal commitment to working with local neighborhoods and community based organizations. The current service learning activity is an exploitation of poor local communities in the name
of education .
1.5. Patient Navigation Experience: Develop a longitudinal patient navigation experience for Foundations students in which they work with social workers and community organizations to develop understanding of how social determinants of health are identified and addressed in our community.
1.6. Create Ongoing Processing Groups: for clerkship students led by peers in order to unpack their experiences with racism in medicine, patient care, and communication as well as examine their own implicit biases and the bias that they observe.
1.7. Surveying on Hidden Curriculum: Actively collect student experiences around poor care, poor outcomes, racism, and implicit bias witnessed during student clinical experiences and utilize this information to direct changes to faculty training, student reporting systems, and educational activities.
2. Anti-racism Training:
2.1. Student Development : Create formal anti-racism training before beginning 1st year, before starting clinical rotations, and again during successful interning. For these sessions, hire and competitively compensate professional anti-racism
educators, ideally from the local community, to facilitate conversations about race, anti-racism training, and providing anti-racist medical care.
2.1.1. Power and Privilege, Transitions to Clerkship, successful interning, etc.
2.2. Faculty Development: Implement mandatory annual anti-racism training
sessions for faculty so that they are able to effectively deliver this content to students. For these sessions, hire and competitively compensate professional anti-racism educators, ideally from the local community, to facilitate conversations about race, anti-racism training, and providing anti-racist medical care.
2.2.1. For faculty that are identified as having deficiencies by students regarding their competency in leading discussions related to social determinants of health, cultural humility and competency, race, gender, sexuality, religion, and ability, there must be a formal remediation process and achievement of an acceptable level of proficiency before returning to facilitate student learning. These remediation processes must be made transparent. Those faculty who cannot meet an acceptable standard must be removed from their position as a facilitator.
3. Reporting System: A clearly advertised and transparent reporting system with explicit procedures for reporting, investigating and resolving incidents of bias and discrimination
in the school and hospital must be created . This will include racial discrimination students experience, as well as those they witness occurring to others. This reporting system must be confidential. All students must be assigned someone to follow-up with
them to ensure that their needs are met.
II. Reforming Medical Education Institutional Policies
1. Admissions:
1.1. Overrepresentation in admissions: Admit incoming classes with
over-representation of Black, Latinx, and Native American students. Other
underrepresented groups in medicine (as defined by the Association of American Medical Colleges) should also be considered here.
1.1.1. Recruitment measures: Admit more students from pipeline programs,
implement recruitment efforts, clear policies surrounding evaluation of
“qualified” students.
1.2. Timeline: Partner with students to ensure that this is possible for the class of 2026.
2. Alpha Omega Alpha (AOA), Grading & Remediation:
2.1. AOA and racial inequities: Publicly release data on the preclinical/clinical
grades and rates of AOA elections for students of different races/ethnicities and immediately address inequities in partnership with students.
2.2. Subjective grading and racial inequities: Publicly release data for review of trends in racial/ethnic disparities in the assignment of High Pass / Honors grades in clinical clerkships and immediately address inequities in partnership with students.
2.3. Remediation inequities: Publicly release data for review of trends in
racial/ethnic disparities in remediation and immediately address inequities in
partnership with students.
3. Supporting for Underrepresented Minorities in Medicine (URiM) students
3.1. URiM academic success:
3.1.1. Scholarships : Increase by at least 50% the student-directed funding for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students to support
mentorship, scholarships, national conference attendance, and other
needs as determined by the students.
3.1.2. Academic Support: Increase free access to academic success tools
including but not limited to tutors, and board and shelf preparation materials. Expand access to academic support services, including peer-to-peer tutoring programs.
3.1.3. Safe Space: Designate physical space within SUNY Downstate for the
aforementioned resources and to be used at the discretion of BIPOC
(Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students.
3.2. Celebrate URiM graduate and professional students: Permanently display installations celebrating URiM faculty, staff and alumni in the medical school and hospital.
3.3. Mental Health Services:
3.3.1. Increased and congruent services: Increase mental health services available to students of color by hiring providers with the appropriate
training and experience to discuss the impact of trauma from racial bias,
systemic racism, microaggressions, etc.
3.3.2. Mental health days: Provide and promote more mental health days for
students continuously throughout the year. Eliminate the burden of proof
for taking mental health days.
3.4. Create a support inventory for students’ unmet social needs : Connect students to local community organizations supplying funds, childcare, housing, food and other resources.
4. Faculty and Staff Development, Support, and Expectations
4.1. Transparency: Release the current diversity policy on the hiring and recruitment of physicians of color; and provide a report on whether it is being upheld.
4.1.1. Prioritize diversity in interviewing, reviewing and selecting faculty.
4.1.2. Require diversity statements and implicit bias screening for anyone
applying to a position and retroactively for all current faculty and staff.
4.1.3. Include students and community members in all hiring decisions.
4.2. Eliminate burden of reporting: Guarantee protection of faculty, staff, students, and patients who speak out against racism and report incidents of conscious and unconscious bias with the administration.
4.3. Anti-racism training: Incorporate comprehensive, longitudinal anti-racism education for faculty and staff.
4.4. Evaluate budgetary decision-making: Work to protect URiM staff and faculty from vulnerabilities during  budget cuts.
5. Campus Policing
5.1. Publicly release data on the race/ethnicity of students, faculty/staff, and community members involved in interactions with campus police officers, and develop a clear action plan to address racist inequities in campus police interactions.
5.2. Defund campus police: Eliminate the budget for campus policing and reallocate those funds to programs supporting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students and staff and individuals in crisis.
5.2.1. Reallocate funds from current public safety structures towards the
development and implementation of alternative, non-carceral methods of
ensuring safety on the school and hospital campuses.
III. Reforming Hospital Policies
1. Implementing Anti Racism training in the hospital
1.1. Regular racial bias sessions: Establish bi-weekly, structured, up to date, and mandatory educational sessions about biases and racism for providers and staff.
Meetings should:
1.1.1. Create space for faculty, student, staff and administrative groups to identify instances of interpersonal and institutional racism.
1.1.2. Create a plan designed to respond to reported instances identified in above meetings and to implement new anti-racist policies throughout the departments.
1.1.3. Teach trauma-informed care (1) for Emergency Department (ED) providers & staff through mandatory training sessions.
1.1.4. Allow students to identify instances of negative “hidden curriculum,” and develop a plan for correcting poorly modeled behaviors for medical trainees.
1.2. Anti-racism screening: Implement anti-racist/implicit bias screening in the hiring process of healthcare providers & staff. Hire and competitively compensate professional anti-racism educators, ideally from the local community, to facilitate conversations about race, antiracism training, and anti-racist medical care.
1.3. Investigation and disciplinary action: Fully investigate reported instances of racist practices and require transparency of disciplinary actions imposed for offending providers and faculty members.
2. Addressing Police in the Hospital: Examine and make publicly available hospital security, sedation, mental health holds, and policing policies.
2.1. Refuse ICE collaboration: Publicly commit to not collaborate with U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
2.2. Sedation Policies: Have clear policies and procedures for sedation of patients, and make these policies readily available.
2.3. Handcuffing policies: Eliminate handcuffing of patients to hospital beds.
2.4. Escalation policies: Require transparent policy for escalation of incidents in the hospital to police.
2.5. Emergency room policies: Eliminate police presence in patient care areas of the emergency room to protect patient privacy and bill of rights. Provide clear education to all faculty and staff about interactions with police as they relate to protection of patient confidentiality.
3. Investigating poor healthcare delivery and outcomes in our hospital
3.1. Investigation of quality of care: Examine city-wide data to distinguish between poor outcomes for our patients due to underlying comorbidities versus poor quality of care. Publicize these data comparing our hospital’s outcomes, accounting for comorbidity in the population.
3.1.1. Utilize this investigation to identify sources of poor quality of care and develop specific plans to address these sources.
3.2. Mental health improvement: Examine policies related to inpatient psychiatric care, psychiatry consults, capacity assessments, and transfer to psychiatric facilities in order to address and eliminate racial bias in psychiatric
decision-making.
3.3. Desegregate patient care : Eliminate the de facto segregation of patient care that routinely occurs through triage decision-making, discrimination based on insurance status, and use of trainees to care for marginalized patients.
3.3.1. Implement policies to address racial bias in medical decision making.
3.3.2. Publicly release aggregate data on the racial demographics, primary
language, and insurance status of patients seen in each Downstate and
affiliate care locations.
3.3.3. Implement a clear action plan to address disparities in access to
comprehensive care at SUNY Downstate sites.
4. Staff Support & Fair wages (2)
4.1. Release of data: Publicly release disaggregated data on wages and the
demographics of employees who have received pay cuts and/or have been
subject to furlough due to the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
4.2. Fair wages: Develop a plan to increase to local living wage:
4.2.1. Guarantee living wage: Immediately guarantee all employees - including non-represented and represented staff, part time and full time staff, and staff with less than 2 years of benefit eligible service - wages at a NYC hourly living wage of $17.99 (for the period of July 1, 2020 - June 30, 2021) with full benefits. (3)
4.2.2. Equity in wages: Ensure equitable compensation for all staff, and especially for healthcare workers and children that live in poverty, a disproportionate number of whom are Black women.
5. Hospital Funding
5.1. Funding disparities: Demand greater funding for SUNY Downstate by appealing to state-level decision makers. Interrogate the reasons why there are disparities in funding compared to other hospitals with a lower health burden.
5.2. End support of prison labor: Commit to divesting from CorCraft (4) and other companies utilizing prison labor or supporting the prison-industrial complex.
6. Community Engagement: Create community advisory boards in every department. These should consist of community members, patients, and representatives from organizations serving our community. Empower these community advisory boards to:
6.1. Examine Downstate’s role within the community and to challenge policies that lead to higher death rates in our hospital.
6.2. Involve community members in hiring decisions of faculty/staff.
6.3. Involve community members in reviewing individual faculty and collective departments for instances of racial bias and commit to improvement of patient experience.
6.4. Require policies for accountability of each department to its community advisory board.
7. Research:
7.1. Funding: Incorporate anti-racism policies within the approval and funding of scientific research at Downstate.
7.2. Race in human subjects research: Modify the SUNY Downstate Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval process to require researchers involved in any human subjects research that looks at race to precisely define race and how it is being used in the research project. Projects based on race must define it as a sociopolitical construct in order to accurately interpret the observed differences
as a product of racism.
7.3. Community Advisory Board: Establish a research-specific community advisory board to be involved in developing and evaluating all projects related to the health of the community, health disparities, and social determinants of health.
Empower this board to evaluate current research practices.
IV. Institutional Commitment to Transparency & Accountability
1. Review & Publicize Demand Constraints : If any demands are deemed impossible because of financial or other outside constraints, the institution must publicly acknowledge and release what those constraints are.
2. Engage Students in Decision-Making : Involve students in every aspect of
implementing the above demands, including all upcoming budget cuts.
3. Channel donations : Allow donations received through the alumni office to be allocated to these specific areas of need in the institution and to this racial justice initiative.
4. Demonstrate commitment to transparency and accountability: Create a center for social justice that works exclusively to further all aforementioned points and demands.

(1) Trauma-informed care is defined as practices that promote a culture of safety, empowerment and healing

(2) Over 1 million healthcare workers and their children live in poverty, these workers are disproportionately Blackwomen

(3)https://livingwage.mit.edu/counties/36061

(4) CorCraft is a company that exploits the labor of incarcerated people for $0.16- $1.30/hour

With loving support of Downstate students:
Brian Levin (COM 2022), Nabil Khan (COM 2023), Paige Marze (COM 2021), Marioghae Otuada (COM 2022), Caroline Atlas (COM 2021), Sarah Friedman (COM 2021), Matthew
Mendelsohn (COM 2022), Catherina Lubin (COM 2021) , Amy Mandavia (COM 2022), Dominique Noriega (COM 2022), Chanelle Simmons (COM 2021) , Owen Edwards (COM 2023), Eric Kramer (COM 2021), Camilo Galeano Londono (COM2021), Maya Orlofsky (COM 2022), John Hessburg (COM 2021), Shari Gurusinghe (COM 2021), Mackenzie Boyce (COM 2021) , Francesca Macaluso (COM 2021), Taylor Murtaugh (COM 2021), Hemil Chauhan (COM 2021), Shannon X Chen (COM/ SPH 2023), Courtney Connelly (COM 2021), Kathleen Simons
(COM 2023), Christine Ibrahim (COM 2022) , Lucy Bickerton (COM 2021), Kelsey Sklar (COM/SPH 2022), Diana Gonzalez- Golden (COM 2022), Leanna Smith (COM 2021), Lawrence M Langan (COM 2023), Lila Marshall (COM 2021), Perry Kerner (COM 2023), Alexandra Greenberg (COM 2023), Monica Friedman (COM 2022), Gabriel Davis (COM 2022), Nicolle Siegart (COM 2021) , Joel Mathew (COM 2023), Omoakhe Tisor (COM 2021), Merlyn George (COM 2021), Ariana Otto (COM 2023), Priyanka Parmar (COM 2021), Latia Skerving (COM
2023), Jeffrey Arace (COM 2021), Ryan Cecchi (COM 2021), Jasmine Walker (COM 2021), Schneider Rancy (COM 2021), John Hessburg (COM 2021), Sabrina Rosengarten (COM 2022),
Isabella Giunta (COM 2023), Aladeyemi Osho (COM 2021), Myanna Olsen (COM 2021), Emily Stanford (COM 2022), Aaron S. Conway (COM 2022) , Anjali Jaiman (COM 2021) , Alexandra
Belzie (COM 2023) , Omasiri Wonodi (COM 2022), Shreya Desikan (COM 2023), Jessica Chumsky (COM 2021), Nicoletta Kijak (COM 2022), Evan Marzouk (COM 2022), Julia Sokel
(COM 2022), Justin Ingram (COM 2023), Samuel Hernandez (COM 2022), Andrea Martinez (COM 2023), Jessica Johnson (COM 2021), Lily Stokoe (COM 2022), Cameron Moattari (COM
2021), Emiliya Storman (COM 2021), Aaron Kung (COM 2023), Priyanka Wadgaonkar (COM 2022), David Zakay (COM 2021), Stefanie Biondi (COM 2021), Sierra Troy-Regier (CON 2021),
Sharif Hosein (COM 2023), Charles Benson (COM 2021), Anumta Raheel (COM 2023), Yelyzaveta Prysyazhnyuk (COM 2021), Shannon Frank (COM 2023), Bertilia Tavarez (COM 2023), Lindsey Ayanruoh (COM 2023), Michael Devereux (COM 2022), Chetan Khanna (COM 2022), Insha Khalil (ABSN 2021), Jordan Dow (SUNY DMC Resident), Maeve Carver (CON 2021), Svetlana Borisovna (ABSN 2021), Jennifer De Los Santos (SPH 2021), Coraima De La
O Veliz (CON 2021), Rohan Maini (COM 2021), Tanveen Dhalllu (COM 2022), Shivani K Hewitt (COM 2022), Dana Eldorr (CON 2021), Zoya Hud (COM 2021),Gabrielle Estevez-Inoa (COM
2023), Fatimah Choudhary (COM 2021), Diona Symester (COM 2021), Tracey Yee (COM 2021), Celestine Christensen (COM 2022), Claire Ferguson (COM 2022), Mohamed Sylla
(COM 2023) , Rohan Goyal (COM 2022), Hannah Saven (COM 2022), Maria Tamayo (CON 2021), Alexis Rivera (COM 2023) , Taylor Conrad (EM/IM/CM PGY4), Nicole Anthony (EM
Resident), Alexandros Prokopiou (COM 2023), Lana Kassgergi (COM 2022), Bing Li (Resident), Toan Nguyen (COM 2023), Radha Sathanayagam (COM 2022), Elaine Fletcher (COM 2022) ,
Lisa Kim (COM 2022) , Temitope Olayinka (COM 2022) , Ahsan Nawaz (2021), Jason Rahimzadeh (COM 2022), George Papadopoulos (COM 2022)
*Student editors are bolded