From Bystander to Upstander: Allyship, Advocacy and Upstander Skills

Partners:: Jean-Marie Alves-Bradford, Associate Clinical Professor, Columbia University Medical Center Department of Psychiatry; Hetty Cunningham, Associate Professor, Columbia University Medical Center Department of Pediatrics

Discipline:: Medicine

Provost Grant:: Innovative Course Module Design

Released:: October 2021

Updated:: October 2021

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From Bystander to Upstander uses videos, interactive tutorials and case-based scenarios to help students and faculty recognize and respond to discrimination and bias that they may either experience or witness during their medical education and beyond.

In Spring 2021, faculty members Jean-Marie Alves-Bradford and Hetty Cunnigham sought CTL support to introduce a new curricular component to Columbia Medical School’s Foundations of Clinical Medicine (FCM) Seminars course to emphasize advocacy, allyship, and upstander skills. The goal of the course redesign was to help students recognize and respond to discrimination and bias that they may either experience or witness during their medical education and beyond.

The faculty members envisioned creating several “upstander” videos demonstrating bias response skills in medical settings, online interactive tutorials to demonstrate allyship and upstander skills, and interactive case-based scenarios for skills practice.

COVID-19 protocols proved difficult for production, but the CTL team brainstormed a new set of ideas and pivoted their focus. Solutions included an outdoor discussion among students, an interaction in a hospital room with masks, and a simulation of an online Zoom classroom.

The final learning interactives and videos debuted in classrooms in October 2021 with great success. Dr. Alves-Bradford reported that students felt the videos were a much better illustration of the upstander skills than the previous written practice cases. The team plans to produce additional videos and interactives once Columbia’s mask mandate is lifted.