IV. Recommendation for Culturally Competent Curricula Delivery: The Tuskegee Syphilis Study

Medical education's culturally competent accreditation standards present a need for curricular content delivery. The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality notes that “[c]ultural competency training can be achieved by infusion, integrating a multicultural perspective throughout curriculum or training activities.” This idea of infusion of perspectives *184 into the medical curriculum is echoed in Professor Margaret Montoya's call for the “[t]he fusion of [Critical Race Feminist Theory] CRF from law schools with linguistic and cultural competence from medical schools.” This Article contends that CRF offers critical teaching tools necessary to enhance culturally competent curricular content for medical schools. The focus of this section is to provide an example of “CRF Teaching Points,” particularly as to the use of deconstructive techniques and narratives. Part A will introduce critical teaching tools. Part B will demonstrate deconstructive techniques to teach about the Tuskegee Syphilis Study through the contemporary lens of the HBO movie, Miss Evers Boys. Part C will explore the use of narrative by examining “her-story,” the unique and particularized experiences of Black women which would otherwise be marginalized. “Scientific investigators had to learn that ‘moral judgment should always be a part of any human endeavor,’ including ‘the dispassionate scientific search for knowledge.’ Accordingly, medical students should learn this invaluable lesson as a part of the mandate for a culturally competent education. This final section examines critical teaching tools to recount the Tuskegee Syphilis Study and its biomedical significance on women and research, in order to begin to assist medical schools in their mandate to demonstrate minimum proficiency in the area of cultural competency for purposes of accreditation.