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Measuring Medical Students' Preparedness and Skills to Provide Cross-Cultural Care

Purpose: Cross-cultural education is an integral and required part of undergraduate medical curricula. However, the teaching of cross-cultural care varies widely and methods of evaluation are lacking. We sought to better understand medical students' perspectives on their own cultural competency...

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Autores principales: Green, Alexander R., Chun, Maria B.J., Cervantes, Marina C., Nudel, Jacob D., Duong, Jason V., Krupat, Edward, Betancourt, Joseph R.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6071879/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30283831
http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/heq.2016.0011
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author Green, Alexander R.
Chun, Maria B.J.
Cervantes, Marina C.
Nudel, Jacob D.
Duong, Jason V.
Krupat, Edward
Betancourt, Joseph R.
author_facet Green, Alexander R.
Chun, Maria B.J.
Cervantes, Marina C.
Nudel, Jacob D.
Duong, Jason V.
Krupat, Edward
Betancourt, Joseph R.
author_sort Green, Alexander R.
collection PubMed
description Purpose: Cross-cultural education is an integral and required part of undergraduate medical curricula. However, the teaching of cross-cultural care varies widely and methods of evaluation are lacking. We sought to better understand medical students' perspectives on their own cultural competency across the 4-year curriculum using a validated survey instrument. Methods:We conducted an annual Internet-based survey at Harvard Medical School with students in all 4 years of training, for four consecutive years. We used a tool previously validated with residents and slightly modified it for medical students, assessing their (1) preparedness, (2) skillfulness, and (3) perspectives on the educational curriculum and learning climate. Results: Of 2592 possible survey responses, we received 1561 (60% response rate). Fourth-year students had significantly higher scores than first-year students (p<0.001) for all but one preparedness item (caring for transgender patients) and all but one skillfulness item (identifying ability to read/write English). Less than 50% of students felt adequately prepared/skilled by their fourth year on 8 of 11 preparedness items and 5 of 10 skillfulness items. Lack of practical experience caring for diverse patients was the most frequently cited challenge. Conclusions: While students reported that preparedness and skillfulness to care for culturally diverse patients seem to increase with training, fourth-year students still felt inadequately prepared and skilled in many important aspects of cross-cultural care. Medical schools can use this tool with students to self-assess cultural competency and to help guide enhancements to their curricula focusing on cross-cultural care.
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spelling pubmed-60718792018-10-03 Measuring Medical Students' Preparedness and Skills to Provide Cross-Cultural Care Green, Alexander R. Chun, Maria B.J. Cervantes, Marina C. Nudel, Jacob D. Duong, Jason V. Krupat, Edward Betancourt, Joseph R. Health Equity Original Article Purpose: Cross-cultural education is an integral and required part of undergraduate medical curricula. However, the teaching of cross-cultural care varies widely and methods of evaluation are lacking. We sought to better understand medical students' perspectives on their own cultural competency across the 4-year curriculum using a validated survey instrument. Methods:We conducted an annual Internet-based survey at Harvard Medical School with students in all 4 years of training, for four consecutive years. We used a tool previously validated with residents and slightly modified it for medical students, assessing their (1) preparedness, (2) skillfulness, and (3) perspectives on the educational curriculum and learning climate. Results: Of 2592 possible survey responses, we received 1561 (60% response rate). Fourth-year students had significantly higher scores than first-year students (p<0.001) for all but one preparedness item (caring for transgender patients) and all but one skillfulness item (identifying ability to read/write English). Less than 50% of students felt adequately prepared/skilled by their fourth year on 8 of 11 preparedness items and 5 of 10 skillfulness items. Lack of practical experience caring for diverse patients was the most frequently cited challenge. Conclusions: While students reported that preparedness and skillfulness to care for culturally diverse patients seem to increase with training, fourth-year students still felt inadequately prepared and skilled in many important aspects of cross-cultural care. Medical schools can use this tool with students to self-assess cultural competency and to help guide enhancements to their curricula focusing on cross-cultural care. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 2017-01-01 /pmc/articles/PMC6071879/ /pubmed/30283831 http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/heq.2016.0011 Text en © Alexander R. Green et al., 2017; Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited.
spellingShingle Original Article
Green, Alexander R.
Chun, Maria B.J.
Cervantes, Marina C.
Nudel, Jacob D.
Duong, Jason V.
Krupat, Edward
Betancourt, Joseph R.
Measuring Medical Students' Preparedness and Skills to Provide Cross-Cultural Care
title Measuring Medical Students' Preparedness and Skills to Provide Cross-Cultural Care
title_full Measuring Medical Students' Preparedness and Skills to Provide Cross-Cultural Care
title_fullStr Measuring Medical Students' Preparedness and Skills to Provide Cross-Cultural Care
title_full_unstemmed Measuring Medical Students' Preparedness and Skills to Provide Cross-Cultural Care
title_short Measuring Medical Students' Preparedness and Skills to Provide Cross-Cultural Care
title_sort measuring medical students' preparedness and skills to provide cross-cultural care
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6071879/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30283831
http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/heq.2016.0011
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