• Esther Melamed, Lacey E Wyatt, Tony Padilla, and Robert J Ferry.
• Medical Scientist Training Program, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA. emelamed@ucla.edu
• Fam Med. 2008 Nov 1; 40 (10): 726733726-33.

Background And ObjectivesThe 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.MethodsThe 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.ResultsTrainees 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.ConclusionsThis 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.

10 keywords...

hide…