How do you as a professional psychologist know if you are competent to treat clients whose cultural origins and values differ from your own? What awareness, knowledge, and skills do you need? With whom should you consult? When should you refer? Adopting an idiographic, inclusive approach, the authors identify 12 minimal multicultural competencies for practice and illustrate their usefulness through 3 case examples. Suggestions for how professional psychologists can augment and evaluate their own multicultural competencies are offered as well as implications for professional psychology educators. Consider the following scenario: Dr. Mary Ann Smith is a European American licensed clinical psychologist trying to build her private practice in a medium-sized town in the upper Midwest. She has worked to become listed on provider panels and realizes how important self-referred individuals with good insurance are to her livelihood. In 1 week, she receives three new clients: a recently fired Native American male nurse filing a discrimination lawsuit against the school district; a Spanish-speaking Mexican American lesbian fighting a custody battle with her ex-husband; and a blind, indigent, 70-year-old Irish American man with depression. "Am I competent to treat these clients?" wonder^ Dr. Smith, "and if not, to whom do I refer?" For professional psychologists like Dr. Smith, working with diverse clients will soon become the norm rather than the exception. Shortly after the year 2050, racial and ethnic minorities will become a numerical majority in the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995). Nearly 75% of the current entering labor force are racial and ethnic minorities or women, and when "baby NANCY DOWNING HANSEN received her PhD in counseling psychology from the University of Florida in 1980. She is a member of the clinical psychology faculty at The Fielding Institute. Her professional interests include ethics, multicultural psychology, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, and qualitative research.

The hypothesis that female and male bodies are equally represented in human anatomy text illustrations was tested to determine whether medical students are shown both females and males as possessing equally important and normal bodies in medical school instructional material. All anatomy texts currently in use in a major western medical school (N = 8) were surveyed. In text sections dealing with standard (non‐gender‐specific) anatomy, male subjects were shown in 64% of the illustrations in which gender was discernable, females were shown in 11%, and gender‐neutral or equal representations were shown in 25%. Females and males were found to be represented approximately equally in chapters on urogenital (gender‐specific) anatomy (45 % female, 48% male, 7% neutral or equal representation). The implications of these findings for the perpetuation of sexist attitudes in the medical profession are discussed.

Death anxiety levels of 130 psychiatrists, 57 psychologists, 31 suicidologists, and 8 funeral directors in California were compared through a mail survey. The hypothesis that psychiatrists would have the highest death anxiety levels because their suicide rates are high was not supported. However, this study provides baseline data for levels of death anxiety for the four occupational groups; psychologists showed the highest levels of death anxiety.

A questionnaire assessing subjective level of job stress and physical health over the past two years was completed by 173 women in university (non-faculty) positions. Health was divided into two categories: menstrual dysfunction and other non-menstrual symptoms. Two samples, matched for age, were selected: women in high-paying positions (N = 72) and women in low-paying positions (N = 101). Respondents also answered a Recent Life Changes Questionnaire (RLCQ) and an eight-item life satisfaction list. The hypothesis of a positive relationship between job stress and menstrual dysfunction was rejected. The predicted relationship held for non-menstrual symptoms. Subjective stress, RLCQ score, and life satisfaction accounted for 21% of the variance in non-menstrual symptoms. Thus, while both RLCQ and subjective job stress were related to symptom reports, their contributions were independent of one another. The female reproductive system does not seem particularly vulnerable to the levels of stress experienced in professional, managerial, and clerical occupations.

The legal and medical professions, among others, are commonly considered high-stress professions and are associated with high risk of suicide. A recent study of medical students and recent medical graduates did not confirm a higher incidence of suicide in this group. The question then arose as to what was actually true among law students and recently graduated young lawyers. The following is a report of the findings of such a study. In effect, the study concludes that law students and young lawyers have a significantly lower rate of suicide than the average population in the same age group.