The need for relevant and responsive health-care that improves people’s health outcomes means that medical schools need to be accountable for what and how they teach. Medical schools are responsible for training health practitioners who can help improve the health of individuals and societies.

The need for accountability also goes beyond that. Universities, including medical schools, receive large amounts of funding from governments to direct their education, research and service towards meeting the needs of the public.

Almost 30 years ago, the World Health Organization issued a mandate stating medical schools need to be socially accountable, meaning they are obligated to respond to the emerging needs of society and to address their priority health concerns.

In Canada, undergraduate medical programs must currently demonstrate social accountability to receive accreditation. Our recent research has examined how medical schools can design channels through which students and faculty can relay the priorities and needs of communities back to medical schools.

Medical schools need to listen to communities and respond to their needs. Having a social accountability mandate suggests medical schools are responsible for building a workforce of practitioners who are willing and capable of advocating on behalf of patients, families and communities to address the factors that affect their quality of life.

But that is not all. A social accountability mandate confers a moral obligation upon medical schools to consider the inequities within and among populations served — and subsequently target interventions to reduce inequities in society.

Therefore, social justice is a cardinal value of socially accountable medical education. This may be realized through........

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