Dr Yun Ting Ong1, Prof Lalit Krishna1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8
1Division of Cancer Education, National Cancer Centre Singapore, , Singapore, 2Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine, National University of Singapore, , Singapore, 3Division of Supportive and Palliative Care, National Cancer Centre Singapore, , Singapore, 4Duke-NUS Medical School, , Singapore, 5Palliative Care Institute Liverpool, Academic Palliative & End of Life Care Centre, Cancer Research Centre, University of Liverpool, , United Kingdom, 6Centre for Biomedical Ethics, National University of Singapore, , Singapore, 7The Palliative Care Centre for Excellence in Research and Education, PalC C/O Dover Park Hospice, , Singapore, 8Health Data Science, University of Liverpool, Whelan Building, , United Kingdom
Biography:
Prof Lalit Kumar Radha Krishna is a senior consultant at the Division of Supportive and Palliative Care at National Cancer Singapore. He is actively involved in research in medical ethics and medical education. His research interests include personhood and professional identity formation.
Dr Ong Yun Ting is a medical officer in internal medicine in Singapore.
Abstract:
“Woke culture” is an informal term which references increased awareness of ingrained biases or injustice such as those resulting from differences in race, gender, sexuality, weight, and socioeconomic status. In its extremes, woke-ness has been criticised to be over-sensitive, misguided and performative and has given rise to punitive calling out and cancel culture.
Woke culture has also permeated medical education, with both trainers and trainees showing greater sensitivity to bias and discrimination. However, responding to woke views may lead to respondents being targeted and shamed as part of cancel culture where individuals are blamed rather than held responsible for biases. This disincentivises engaging in any discourse on bias or injustice limiting dissection and disassembling of such biases. Enshrinement of discrimination within medical schools, tutors, learners and therefore future doctors may then lead to worse patient outcomes should implicit and explicit biases pass on to patient care.
Through review of the literature, this systematic scoping review aims to outline a working definition of woke culture and cancel culture, critiques of woke and cancel culture, impact on medical students and educators and provide advice to guide educators. Successful navigation of woke culture facilitates socioculturally sensitive medical education that does not curtail meaningful discussion on bias.