The Effects of an Indigenous Health Curriculum for Medical Students

PURPOSE: Indigenous patients experience a variety of healthcare challenges including accessing and receiving needed healthcare services, as well as experiencing disproportionate amounts of bias and discrimination within the healthcare system. In an effort to improve patient-provider interactions and reduce bias towards Indigenous patients, a curriculum was developed to improve first-year medical students’ Indigenous health knowledge. METHOD: Two cohorts of students were assessed for their Indigenous health knowledge, cultural intelligence, ethnocultural empathy, and social justice beliefs before the lecture series, directly after, and 6 months later. RESULTS: Results of paired t test analysis revealed that Indigenous health knowledge significantly improved after the training and 6 months later. Some improvements were noted in the areas of cultural intelligence and ethnocultural empathy in the second cohort. CONCLUSIONS: It is feasible to teach and improve Indigenous-specific health knowledge of medical students using a brief intervention of lectures. However, other critical components of culturally appropriate care including social justice beliefs and actions, ethnocultural empathy, and cultural humility may require increased and immersed cultural training.