HEJIM was birthed in the midst of a novel pandemic, racial reckoning, and social pain. It was the response to a society seeking to reconcile its history with its present in order to create a better future for everyone especially those most harmed by the structural violence of racism and all other forms of oppression.

The Department of Internal Medicine, WSUSOM, had been delivering a robust curriculum focused on social determinants of health 6 years prior to the year of confluence, 2020, when the murder of George Floyd, the Black Lives Matter movement, and the national awakening to the reality of racism in the midst of stark COVID19 racial disparities, inspired the transformation of the curriculum to evolve target health equity and social justice. Thus, the name evolved from Social Determinant of Health to Health Equi-T and Justice in Medicine, where the “T” represents “Trustworthiness” & “Trauma-informed Care”.