Written by Aaron Andrews, Carmen Duimering, and Megan Matlock Interdisciplinary Medical Sciences students at Western University

Working on this CEL project as a team was an incredibly rewarding experience. From the very beginning, we leaned on each other’s strengths and found that our diverse perspectives helped us navigate the complexity of our task: building an accessible training module for sociodemographic (SD) data collection. Whether it was collaborating on the script, troubleshooting design challenges, or refining our language to be more inclusive, we constantly checked in with one another, offered feedback, and kept the end-users—frontline service providers—at the center of our decisions.

A huge part of our learning came through working closely with our community partner, Christine from CRHESI. She brought invaluable insight from her experience on the ground, reminding us to stay rooted in the lived realities of service providers and the communities they serve. Her thoughtful feedback pushed us to think critically about clarity, tone, and accessibility in a way we wouldn’t have been able to achieve on our own. Christine wasn’t just a collaborator—she was a guide, helping us align our academic goals with community needs.

What stood out most was how much we learned by doing. This wasn’t just about completing a project—it was about learning how to communicate clearly, balance accountability with compassion, and make meaningful decisions as a group. We often found ourselves reflecting on how nuanced SD data collection really is—not just from a systems level, but also from a human one. We learned to think more critically about accessibility, representation, and the real-world application of equity-based tools.
In the end, the process shaped us just as much as the final deliverable. We’re proud of what we created, but even more so of how we grew as teammates, listeners, and advocates for equity in health and social systems.

Six months ago, the City of London launched the Stop TolerHating campaign — a bold initiative to raise awareness about hate and discrimination, promote allyship, and equip bystanders with tools to respond to hate. The campaign has been supported by many community-based organizations, including the Centre for Research on Health Equity and Social Inclusion (CRHESI).

Now, we need your help.

In partnership with Senomi Solutions, the City is conducting an evaluation to understand how the campaign is resonating with the public and where improvements can be made. Led by Dr. Nicole Kaniki, this process aims to gather feedback on messaging, accessibility, impact, and future directions.

We invite you to share your thoughts by completing this short survey:
Complete the Survey

Your input will directly inform how the City and its partners shape future anti-hate efforts and ensure that community voices guide meaningful change.

Please share the survey with colleagues, friends, and others in your network. Every voice matters.

For questions about the evaluation, contact Dr. Nicole Kaniki at nicole.kaniki@senomisolutions.com.

Let’s work together to build a city that actively rejects hate and uplifts equity-denied communities.

Authorship:
McKeown, A., Kaltabanis, D., Treesh, R.H., Modanloo, S.

Case studies are an integral tool in healthcare education, providing students with realistic patient scenarios that help them develop clinical reasoning, decision-making skills, and the ability to safely care for patients. Using authentic examples in healthcare education allows future healthcare professionals to engage with diverse medical conditions and social contexts in a simulated learning environment prior to encountering real patients. Unfortunately, the case studies used in healthcare education often fail to represent the full diversity of patients, reinforcing stereotypes, tokenizing equity-deserving groups, and perpetuating oppressive practices through curriculum.

Lack of diverse representation in healthcare case studies carries significant consequences. When healthcare professionals are trained using case studies that feature only white men, for instance, they become ill-prepared to understand and address the needs of women and people of colour, not to mention those of Indigenous Peoples or people with varied gender and sexual identities. Leaving out diverse perspectives and lived experiences in educational materials contributes to gaps in care, cultural misunderstandings, and inequities in health outcomes.

Our project addresses this issue by developing case studies that accurately represent people and groups in all their diversities, helping future healthcare providers learn to offer respectful and culturally safe care. This work is informed by the principles of our Decolonization, Anti-Racism, and Anti-Oppression (DARAO) Committee within the Arthur Labatt Family School of Nursing, where our efforts to challenge structural inequities in education directly influence the development of our inclusive and culturally responsive case studies. Culturally safe care means that patients feel respected, valued, and free from discrimination in their healthcare experience. This shift is critical in fostering more inclusive and equitable healthcare teaching, learning, and practice spaces. Learning from cases that represent diversity will also give students opportunities to practice cultural humility, which in many ways underpins equity-promoting approaches in healthcare.

We are honoured to have received a Western Libraries Open Education Resource Mini-Grant for this work. This grant will be instrumental in the development of a resource aimed at assisting healthcare educators in creating inclusive case studies. The primary focus of this initiative is to ensure the accurate representation of individuals’ lived experiences in Canadian healthcare so that case studies authentically reflect real-world conditions. To do this, we will collaborate with individuals with lived experience, scholars, and community advocates to co-create content that accurately reflects the realities of equity-deserving and underrepresented communities in Canada. To ensure its success, we will seek support from community organizations, healthcare professionals, and other stakeholders who share our commitment to equity and inclusion. Their involvement in reviewing our materials, offering feedback, and promoting the resource will be instrumental in ensuring that the project achieves its full potential.

The resource will use various formats, including text-based, video, and arts-based storytelling, to promote diverse forms of knowledge and honour diverse perspectives. The second phase will focus on providing healthcare educators with a practical guide for creating inclusive case studies that avoid stereotypes and oversimplifications while reflecting a range of real-world patient experiences.

We are excited to be at the forefront of a groundbreaking initiative. By collaborating with individuals with lived experience, we are creating a resource for healthcare educators that integrates these diverse lived perspectives into case studies. This collaboration brings much-needed authenticity and depth to healthcare education and challenges traditional frameworks to ensure that all voices are heard and represented. We are excited to introduce this innovative approach to the development of clinical case studies, offering educators a resource that reflects the true diversity of patient experience in Canadian healthcare spaces.

We are confident that this project will help to create a more inclusive curriculum that addresses health equity when training future healthcare professionals. This initiative aligns with Western Libraries’ Knowledge Justice Curriculum, as we are developing resources that ensure inclusivity and representation in healthcare education. It also supports the mission of Western’s Decolonization, Anti-Racism, and Anti-Oppression (DARAO) Committee by reinforcing our shared commitment to fostering equity and justice in healthcare education. We thank the Western Libraries for this grant, as it enables us to take a significant step toward transforming healthcare education into a more inclusive, representative, and equitable space.