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The New Bottom Rung: Internships, Inequality, and the College to Career Transition

Schools as Surveilling Institutions? Paternal Incarceration, System Avoidance, and Parental Involvement in Schooling

Unstable and Unpredictable Work Schedules: Effects on Wellbeing and What to Do About It

Women’s education and marriage in Japan: Insights into Social Change (and Stability)

Racial Disparities in Health: Physician Bias and Veterans’ Pensions

Transactional Sex and HIV Risk: From Analysis to Action

Democrats should follow Clinton’s lead on wage hike, commentators say

Principal Investigator Jie Chen, with Andrew Fenelon and others, was awarded a grant to study care coordination on ethnic minority populations

  Background Europe is becoming more social and cultural diverse as a result of the increasing migration, but the medical doctors are largely unprepared. The medical education programmes and teachers have not evolved in line with development of the population. Culturally competent curricula and teachers are needed, to ensure cultural competence among medical doctors and to tackle inequalities in health between different ethnic groups. The objective of this EU financed study is therefore to provide a snapshot of the role of cultural competence in European medical educational programmes. Methods A questionnaire was developed in order to uncover strengths and weaknesses regarding cultural competence in the European medical education programmes. The questionnaire consisted of 32 questions. All questions had an evidence box to support the informants’ understanding of the questions. The questionnaire was sent by email to the 12 European project partners. 12 completed questionnaires were returned. Results Though over half of the participating medical programmes have incorporated how to handle social determinants of health in the curriculum most are lacking focus on how medical professionals’ own norms and implicit attitudes may affect health care provision as well as abilities to work effectively with an interpreter. Almost none of the participating medical programmes evaluate the students on cultural competence learning outcomes. Most medical schools participating in the survey do not offer cultural competence training for teachers, and resources spent on initiatives related to cultural competences are few. Most of the participating medical programmes acknowledge that the training given to the medical students is not adequate for future jobs in the health care service in their respective country regarding cultural competence. Conclusions Our results indicate that there are major deficiencies in the commitment and practice within the participating educational programs and there are clear potentials for major improvements regarding cultural competence in programmes. Key challenges include making lasting changes to the curriculum and motivating and engaging stakeholders (teachers, management etc.) within the organisation to promote and allocate resources to cultural competence training for teachers.

CNN Op-Ed suggests taxes on super-rich and stronger social safety net could help ameliorate financial impact divorce has for many