Mind the Gap handbook now freely available online
Mind the Gap, a handbook of clinical signs and symptoms in black and brown skin, is now available to be downloaded online.
Designed as part of a student-staff partnership project, Mind the Gap was created by medical student, Malone Mukwende, Senior Lecturer in Diversity and Medical Education, Margot Turner, and Clinical Lecturer in Clinical Skills, Dr Peter Tamony. The booklet can now be downloaded as an ebook on the Black and Brown Skin website, created separately by Malone.
The project began after Malone recognised that the images being shown in clinical skills sessions weren’t representative of people with darker skin tones. As a result, Malone approached his personal tutor, and Mind the Gap was born.
Since the announcement of the project, Malone has featured in multiple interviews, appearing in news stories around the globe, sharing his vision to change the medical curriculum. With the handbook now widely available, it is hoped that more doctors and patients will be able to benefit from the content.
“Mind the Gap has allowed for the discussion of issues of representation in clinical teaching,” says Malone. “I hope to see the content of our handbook and similar tools become an integral part of medical school learning.
“If the doctors of tomorrow are better equipped to deal with how signs and symptoms present on black and brown skin, this will improve patient care and reduce the healthcare disparities that exist today.”