Cultural minority students’ experiences with intercultural competency in medical education

Abstract

As cultural minority students were confronted with microaggressions, the medical school did not succeed in creating a safe education environment for all students. Contrary to their aims and intentions, intercultural competence activities had limited effect and seemed to support the polarisation of cultural minority and majority students and teachers. This can be seen as pointing towards a hidden curriculum privileging majority over minority students. For structural integration of intercultural competency in medical education, the focus must penetrate beyond curricular activities towards the critical addressing of the culture and structure of medical school. Collective commitment to creating a safe and inclusive education climate is vital. This requires fostering social cohesion between minority and majority students and teachers, raising awareness and the practice by all involved of critical (self-)reflexivity on cultural prejudice and dominant, exclusionary norms in academic medicine.

Burn-out and mental health of minority medical students in Hungarian medical education.

“…The presence and everyday experiences of minority students and doctors, increasing the diversity of caregivers has been a crucial topic in international literature since the 1990s (1)(2)(3)(4). These studies show that minority students and medical professionals are disadvantaged in several areas or experience discrimination starting from the admission procedure (1,2,5), through experiencing explicit or implicit day-by-day rejection during the training (6)(7)(8)(9) or the questioning of medical competences (6, 10, 11) up until the lack of role models or mentors (8,10,12).…”

“…Several studies highlight the signi cance of mentors or 'role models' in the personal development of medical students -especially in the case of minority students (8,9,12,18,21,34,35). Regarding cultural competences, belonging to a minority community could be an advantage for caregivers: the knowledge of habits, language and problems help them better understand and reassure their patients, and it could present an opportunity for shaping the knowledge and attitude of colleagues (9,10,36).…”

“…Their role in increasing intercultural sensitivity and thus in creating a more inclusive care could be important also for medical students of the majority, although it is important to note that it is both an opportunity and a burden for minority doctors and medical students (9,18,(37)(38)(39).…”

“…Starting medical education means a problematic stage in life for medical students (64,69,70). It might be particularly demanding for minority students (9,10,(13)(14)(15). Comprehensive knowledge-base is available about the phenomenon of burnout among medical students, however, data is incomplete and controversial when it comes to speci c minority groups (for example ethnic or national minorities, sexual or gender minorities) (59,(71)(72)(73).…”

Cultural competency, professional identity formation and transformative learning

“…In this issue of Medical Education , Leyerzapf and Abma present a qualitative evaluation of cultural minority students’ experiences with cultural competency teaching at a Dutch medical school . Using interviews, observations and a focus group with a broad and diverse population of students, the authors identified several challenges that confront minority students in the context of cultural competency teaching.…”