title: Cross-cultural primary care: a patient-based approach.
abstract: In today's multicultural society, assuring quality health care for all persons requires that physicians understand how each patient's sociocultural background affects his or her health beliefs and behaviors. Cross-cultural curricula have been developed to address these issues but are not widely used in medical education. Many curricula take a categorical and potentially stereotypic approach to "cultural competence" that weds patients of certain cultures to a set of specific, unifying characteristics. In addition, curricula frequently overlook the importance of social factors on the cross-cultural encounter. This paper discusses a patient-based cross-cultural curriculum for residents and medical students that teaches a framework for analysis of the individual patient's social context and cultural health beliefs and behaviors. The curriculum consists of five thematic units taught in four 2-hour sessions. The goal is to help physicians avoid cultural generalizations while improving their ability to understand, communicate with, and care for patients from diverse backgrounds.
authors.affiliation: New York Presbyterian Hospital-New York Weill Cornell Medical Center, New York, USA.
authors.forename: J E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Carrillo
authors.forename: A R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Green
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Betancourt
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D003469:Culture; D003479:Curriculum; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000379:methods*; D005006:Ethnicity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008487:Medical History Taking; D008875:Middle Aged; D018802:Patient-Centered Care; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011320:Primary Health Care / Q000379:methods*