Integrating Sex and Gender into an Interprofessional Curriculum: Workshop Proceedings from the 2018 Sex and Gender Health Education Summit

Abstract

Background: In the last 3 years, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) declared advancement of understanding the role sex as a biological variable has in research a priority. The burden now falls on educators and clinicians to translate into clinical practice the ensuing body of evidence for sex as a biological variable that clearly shows the effect of sex/gender on disease diagnosis and management. The 2018 Sex and Gender Health Education Summit (SGHE) organized an interdisciplinary and interprofessional workshop to (1) analyze common clinical scenarios highlighting the nuances of sex-and gender-based medicine (SGBM) in presentation, diagnosis, or management of illness; (2) utilize valid educational and assessment tools for a multiprofessional audience; and (3) brainstorm standardized learning objectives that integrate both. Materials and Methods: We describe the iterative process used to create these scenarios, as well as an interprofessional forum to develop standardized SGBM case-based objectives. Results: A total of 170 health education professionals representing 137 schools of Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmacy, Public Health, Nursing, Physical, and Occupational Therapy participated in this workshop. After attending the workshop, participants reported a significant increase in comfort level with using diverse educational modalities in the instruction of health profession learners. Recurrent themes included case-based learning, use of sex-neutral cases, simulation, and standardized patient scenarios for educational modalities; and self-assessment, peer assessment, and review of clinical documentation as used assessment tools. Materials created for the workshop included teaching SGBM case scenarios, methods of assessment, and sample standardized objectives. Conclusion: The SGHE Summit provided an interdisciplinary forum to create educational tools and materials for SABV instruction that may be applied to a diverse audience.

Sex and Gender Health Educational Tenets: A Report from the 2020 Sex and Gender Health Education Summit

“… 17 , 18 Apart from these efforts, limited work has been done to integrate gender and sex within interprofessional educational activities. 19 , 20 …”

What Should Be Taught and What Is Taught: Integrating Gender into Medical and Health Professions Education for Medical and Nursing Students

“…Experiences of integrating gender into medical and healthcare education in Australia, Sweden, the United States, Canada, Taiwan, and other countries and territories also demonstrates the benefits of gender courses and the manner in which they contribute to students' understanding. For example, after studying gender, students can: recognize gender differences; address medical problems from a gender perspective; demonstrate awareness of the influence of social and cultural factors on individual health, which is generally believed to be affected only by biomedicine; and demonstrate increased sensitivity to the healthcare needs of LGBTQI patients [9,10,[15][16][17][18].…”

“…Integrating gender issues into the curriculum is a common method for medical and health professions education [10,11,14]. The advantage of the gender-integrated curriculum lies in the incorporation of crucial topics related to gender, to which students may rarely be exposed, into courses for existing subjects [38].…”

“…Education is always crucial in the training of healthcare professionals. This is why multiple scholars have advocated the incorporation of gender into medical and healthcare education [2,4,[9][10][11].…”

Sex and Gender Health Education Summit: Advancing Curricula Through a Multidisciplinary Lens

“…Workshop A participants were able to (1) understand the breadth of evidence that adds to the understanding of sex-and gender-specific health in a variety of clinical scenarios, (2) utilize current active learning educational modalities to demonstrate inclusion of sex and gender into existing curricula, (3) create SMART objectives that demonstrate learning and assessment of sex and gender inclusive content, and (4) create a framework for initiating an integrative curricular change that is pertinent to specific professions. 5 Workshop B 6 participants created a framework to (1) understand the role of instructors, course/block directors, and curriculum committees in determining curricular content and change; (2) explain the impact of both internal and external factors to institutions (accreditation, clinical pressures) on shaping the curriculum; (3) convincingly articulate the importance of sex and gender knowledge for the maintenance of health and treatment of patients; and (4) develop confidence…”