Using the PRACTICE mnemonic to apply cultural competency to genetics in medical education and patient care.
Medical education curricula increasingly are incorporating courses on cultural competency and skills development in working with ethnically diverse patient populations as well as courses on genetics and genomics. The authors support these efforts and believe the next step is integration of genetics into cultural competency programs and similarly, cultural competency into genetics curricula. In this paper, the authors describe the work of the Genetics in Primary Care Faculty Development Working Group on Cultural Competency, a federally-funded initiative to prepare generalist faculty to teach genetics as part of ambulatory education. Over a 12-month period, this team wrote a module on cultural competency and nine new clinical cases, and developed the PRACTICE mnemonic (prevalence, risk, attitude, communication, testing, investigation, consent, empowerment) to help health care professionals integrate cultural competency skills in genetics into primary care. More specifically, the PRACTICE mnemonic integrates information emerging from experts in health disparities and doctor-patient communication to build a comprehensive model for addressing the relevance of culture and ethnicity in the delivery of genetic services. Lastly, this paper illustrates a systematic method of covering key areas of cultural competency through discussion of a patient with a genetic disorder as well as presents an argument as to why cultural competency is highly relevant to the delivery of genetic services especially as part of generalists' clinical practice.
Reynolds
P Preston
PP
Primary Care Medical Education Branch, Division of Medicine and Dentistry, Health Resources and Services Administration/NIH, 5600 Fishers Lane, Parklawn Bldg, Rm. 9A-20, Rockville, MD 20857, USA. preston.reynolds@hrsa.hhs.gov
Kamei
Robert K
RK
Sundquist
Janet
J
Khanna
Niharika
N
Palmer
Elissa J
EJ
Palmer
Trish
T
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003142:Communication; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D003479:Curriculum; D004501:Education, Medical / Q000639:trends*; D005823:Genetics / Q000193:education*; D006801:Humans; D007258:Informed Consent; D010344:Patient Advocacy; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D015995:Prevalence; D011320:Primary Health Care; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D018570:Risk Assessment; D009626:Terminology as Topic