TYPE Original Research PUBLISHED 19 February 2025 DOI 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1436656 OPEN ACCESS EDITED BY Vincent Salvatore Gallicchio, Clemson University, United States REVIEWED BY Richard Greggory Johnson III, University of San Francisco, United States Edwin Guillermo Lindo, University of Washington, United States *CORRESPONDENCE Hans Vogt vogt@dezim-institut.de RECEIVED 13 June 2024 ACCEPTED 27 January 2025 PUBLISHED 19 February 2025 CITATION Vogt H, Piberger P and Lazaridou FB (2025) Racism in medical education and the entanglement of contents and (con-)texts: a participative reflection on teaching materials and the everyday experiences of racialized students and physicians in Germany. Front. Public Health 13:1436656. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1436656 COPYRIGHT © 2025 Vogt, Piberger and Lazaridou. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Racism in medical education and the entanglement of contents and (con-)texts: a participative reflection on teaching materials and the everyday experiences of racialized students and physicians in Germany Hans Vogt 1 *, Patricia Piberger 1,2 and Felicia Boma Lazaridou 1,3 1 National Discrimination and Racism Monitor (NaDiRa), German Center for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM), Berlin, Germany, 2 Center for Research on Antisemitism, Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 3 Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Charité University of Medicine, Berlin, Germany Background: Institutional racism and racial disparities in healthcare have received greater focus in the public health sciences in recent decades. The role of medical education in this context has been researched in several studies, mostly in the US, but racism in medical education remains largely underresearched in Germany. The aim of this study is to show how racist knowledge and practices exist within German medical care and are systematically transmitted in German medical education, and how this may institutionally reproduce, legitimize, reinforce, and perpetuate disadvantages. Methods: Based on consultations and preliminary interviews with civic stakeholders and experts, teaching and learning materials in German medical education were randomly sampled. These materials served as a starting point for participative reflection on racist knowledge and practices in German medical education. In the first step, the contents of teaching and learning materials were analyzed to identify terms, themes, or concepts that propagate racist ideas. Thereafter, we sought expert feedback on the analyzed content through one-on-one interviews and focus groups with physicians and medical students who self-identify as affected by racism. Results: Our study reveals two main findings. First, racist knowledge and practices are systematically transmitted and reproduced at different levels of German medical education. Second, the entanglement of multiple institutional dimensions contributes significantly to the perpetuation and legitimization of racist knowledge and practices in German medical education. Conclusion: In keeping with the state of research, the study was primarily exploratory in character and may serve as a starting point for future research on institutional racism in German healthcare and medical education. In addition to the findings that can be used to develop further research questions, initial recommendations for action by civil society, institutions, and policymakers may be derived from the interviews and focus group discussions. KEYWORDS institutional racism, healthcare, medical education, othering, stereotyping, misrepresentation, medical habitus, Germany Frontiers in Public Health 01 frontiersin.org