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The fall 2008 issue of MEDICC Review (Teaching for Health Equity: Changing Paradigms of Medical Education) treats the rarely discussed topic of “teaching for health equity”. Within medical education, there is discussion of medical ethics, professionalism, and, sometimes, services to the underserved. The broad issue of equity—health equity—receives little attention, either in the design of medical education programs or their content. Medical education systems in most countries are wedded to traditional social and economic structures that usually are geared toward producing physicians for that part of the citizenry that is economically and socially advantaged. The predominance of private practice and market- based economies in many countries facilitates the movement of doctors through medical school into practice among those with wealth and health insurance. In the process, health equity is not well served. Poor populations have fewer physicians (and other health professionals), less services provided, poorer outcomes, and greater morbidity and mortality.