Caucusing Activity

Pre-work

Make stickers or buttons with different microaggressions in advance for the workshop. You can use examples listed here or make your own. Alternatively, you can buy buttons from Cultures Connecting (scroll down to “hot buttons”).

Activity

• Read “caucusing guidelines” to the group

  • If you have a group that includes multiple levels of medical hierarchy (medical students, residents, attendings, nurses, MAs…) consider explicitly pointing out that expertise in medicine does not equate to expertise on issues of race and equity. For example, “For this exercise, experience and expertise may flip from how they are in clinic or on the wards. The attendings in the room may be the learners today and an MA may be the expert. Let’s recognize that we are all here to learn, share, and challenge each other.”

• Ask participants to select and wear one of the microaggression stickers/buttons you created as pre-work.

• Introduction

  • Microaggressions are common and harmful. Responding to microaggressions can be uncomfortable and difficult. This activity is an opportunity to practice responding and get feedback on your responses.

• Break into small groups.

  • Group size may depend on the size of your large group. We have found that groups of 3-4 work well. Breaking into small groups allows people to be more vulnerable than they might be in a large group. It also makes it challenging to not participate.

  • Consider the make up of your group and how you might do this. Do you want mixed groups that include all levels (ex. student, intern, attending) or would it be helpful to break into groups that might be more comfortable for challenging discussions (ex. group attendings, students, residents separately)? Are the groups assigned in advance or do you have your group “count off” and then group by number (all the “1s” together, “2s” together, etc.)?

• Activity

  • Once each person has a microaggression sticker/button, get into groups of 3-4. (If there are duplicated stickers/buttons, make sure your group doesn’t have any repeats.)

  • Ask participants to enact a conversation between 2-3 people with the remaining 1-2 people acting as observers.

    • In the scenario, one person just said their microaggression.

    • The other(s) must come up with a response.

    • Observers should note what worked well and what didn’t.

    • Consider using a timer so that all the groups discuss how things went after acting out a 1-3 minute conversation. Allow 5-10 minutes to discuss.

    • After discussion, switch who is reading their microaggress, who responds, and who observes. If desired, you can also switch groups.

  • Questions for discussion:

    • How did that strategy work?

    • Is there a different strategy that might be more effective in that situation?

    • What feedback does the group have for that response?

    • What other ideas does the group have for how to respond to that scenario?

    • Can you imagine the person doing the microaggression responding differently? How would you address those different responses?

• Report back

  • Ask each small group to share some highlights of what they discussed with the large group.