title: Tools for integrating women's health into medical education: clinical cases and concept mapping.
abstract: The authors describe two teaching tools, case-based learning and concept mapping, and how they support cross-disciplinary, multidisciplinary, and interdisciplinary learning, use a biopsychosocial model, and promote the integration of sex- and gender-based science into the medical curriculum. The process of case development at MCP Hahnemann University (MCPHU) is outlined in detail for a specific case. That case, which integrates three different components of women's health, is then presented in full. The authors then provide an example of a concept map dealing with women and alcohol use; the map defines current knowledge and serves as a blueprint for developing curricular goals and learning objectives for the topic. Properly constructed concept maps and cases help teach patient-centered approaches to problem solving, address sex- and gender-based differences in disease as well as in pathophysiology and pharmacology, integrate psychosocial issues-such as family dynamics, environmental stressors, access to health care, effective gender-based communication between patient and provider, and cultural variations-along with biomedical ones, and encourage a multidisciplinary approach to patient care. The authors maintain that these tools might be used to transform medical education by making it more integrated and interdisciplinary.
authors.affiliation: Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, Department of Medicine, MCP Hahnemann School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.
authors.forename: L B
authors.initials: LB
authors.lastname: Weiss
authors.forename: S P
authors.initials: SP
authors.lastname: Levison
mesh_terms: D000428:Alcohol Drinking; D002983:Clinical Competence; D003142:Communication; D003469:Culture; D003479:Curriculum; D004194:Disease; D004501:Education, Medical; D005190:Family; D005260:Female; D006297:Health Services Accessibility; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D017145:Models, Educational; D009937:Organizational Objectives; D010414:Pennsylvania; D010600:Pharmacology; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D011340:Problem Solving; D018794:Problem-Based Learning; D012737:Sex Factors; D013312:Stress, Physiological / Q000503:physiopathology; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000503:physiopathology; D013663:Teaching / Q000379:methods*; D016387:Women's Health