Patient-based cultural competency curriculum for pre-health professionals.
OBJECTIVE
The diverse US population requires medical cultural competency education for health providers throughout their pre-professional and professional years. We present a curriculum to train pre-health professional undergraduates by combining classroom education in the humanities and cross-cultural communication skills with volunteer clinical experiences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) hospital.


METHODS
The course was open to a maximum of 15 UCLA junior and senior undergraduate students with a pre-health or humanities major and was held in the spring quarters of 2002--2004. The change in students' knowledge of cultural competency was evaluated using the Provider's Guide to Quality and Culture Quiz (QCQ) and through students' written assignments and evaluations.


RESULTS
Trainees displayed a statistically significant improvement in scores on the QCQ. Participants' written assignments and subjective evaluations confirmed an improvement in awareness and a high motivation to continue learning at the graduate level.


CONCLUSIONS
This is the first evaluated undergraduate curriculum that integrates interdisciplinary cultural competency training with patient volunteering in the medical field. The didactic, volunteering, and writing components of the course comprise a broadly applicable tool for training future health care providers at other institutions.
Melamed
Esther
E
Medical Scientist Training Program, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. emelamed@ucla.edu
Wyatt
Lacey E
LE
Padilla
Tony
T
Ferry
Robert J
RJ
D054521:Cultural Competency; D018864:Cultural Diversity; D003479:Curriculum; D004516:Education, Premedical / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D005791:Patient Care; D010865:Pilot Projects; D014481:United States