Twelve tips for incorporating migrant and ethnic minorities in the medical curriculum and healthcare

Abstract

Migrant and ethnic communities face several challenges within healthcare systems as patients, physicians and medical students. For health inequalities to be addressed, changes need to be made within our healthcare systems, starting from how the medical curriculum is taught to prospective clinicians. In this article, we present twelve ways to challenge the difficulties migrant and ethnic minorities face in healthcare by incorporating patient, physician and medical student factors into the medical school curriculum and healthcare, in a hope to change outcomes for our widely diverse population of patients and colleagues.

Promoting cultural diversity and inclusion in undergraduate primary care education

“…Healthcare professionals who work with diverse patients and recognise the impact of sociocultural factors on patients' health experiences may have improved patient-doctor interactions, impact positively on patient health outcomes and reduce health disparities [13][14][15][16][17][18]. There is an increasing literature on approaches to promote diversity within the medical curriculum [14,[19][20][21][22]. However, there is no consensus on best practice [14,16] and barriers have been identified at student, educator [14] and institutional levels [13].…”

“…An undergraduate primary care curriculum requires a systematic and integrated approach to diversity. Research has highlighted a need to address the lack of diverse images and clinical cases [20,23] and increase contextual and cultural dimensions in curricular materials [24,25] to better reflect the diversity of patients and populations. This may reduce inadvertent stereotyping and stigmatisation.…”

“…This may reduce inadvertent stereotyping and stigmatisation. Primary care educators should ensure that case studies used are inclusive and reflective of the communities in which they are based [20] and include diverse skin images. Intersectional approaches should be adopted, exploring the complex interaction of an individual's identity, culture and health.…”

“…There is no consensus on how best to assess students' skills in working with culturally diverse patients [32]. A range of strategies can support the incorporation of cultural diversity as part of the assessment and promote a shift from simple factual recall to conceptual understanding and ability to relate theory to clinical practice [16,20]. Primary care assessments could include culturally diverse case scenarios and clinical presentations at OSCE stations that include assessment of a culturally sensitive person-centred approach.…”

“…There is strong evidence that racially minoritised medical students are awarded lower grades compared to their white counterparts. This differential attainment is observed throughout higher education systems globally [4][5][6] and contributing factors may include implicit bias, educational cultures and nature of assessments [4,20,33,34]. Approaches to addressing this could include diversification of examiners and implicit bias training for examiners [20].…”