P063 End the blind spot: making skin of colour education a requirement, not an option

Abstract

Understanding and recognizing dermatological conditions in patients with skin of colour remains an important priority in undergraduate medical training. Undergraduates at Warwick and Edinburgh Medical Schools were invited to complete an anonymous online Likert-scale questionnaire between March and May 2024. Ethical approval was obtained via each medical school’s dean, locally. Forty-two students completed the survey (response rate < 3%) across both institutions. This report aims to assess the progression of undergraduate skin-of-colour dermatology education in the UK. This is a retrospective comparison of prospective data collected in 2022 and 2024 across Warwick, Birmingham and Edinburgh. Notably, 36% (15 of 42) of respondents reported no exposure to patients with skin of colour during their medical training. A further 14% (6 of 42) had never encountered examples of skin of colour within dermatology teaching sessions, and 33% (14 of 42) had never attended a dermatology session that included learning outcomes specific to skin of colour. Three confidence items could be directly mapped to previously published data and were analysed using Mann–Whitney U-tests following Shapiro–Wilk normality testing. Students reported significantly higher confidence in defining skin of colour as a concept (P < 0.001) compared with historical awareness levels in 2022. Confidence recognizing eczema and other common dermatoses (P = 0.08) and confidence describing skin lesions in patients with skin of colour (P = 0.83) did not differ significantly from previous findings. There remains a persistent mismatch between student confidence and actual exposure to teaching relevant to skin of colour. Despite increased emphasis on skin of colour education by the BAD in recent years, integration into undergraduate curricula remains limited. We call on the BAD to work with Skin of Colour Training UK to develop, standardize and mandate dedicated teaching of skin of colour within undergraduate medical programmes, ensuring improved awareness and clinical competence among future clinicians.