Students work to foster tolerance
CMAJ 1997;157:370
The article "Medical curricula for the next millennium: responding to diversity" (CMAJ 1997;156:1295-6 [full text / résumé]), by Dr. Christiane Kuntz, addresses the need to change medical education. The author argues that practitioners who use noninclusive language need to be aware of the negative influence they may have on maturing medical students. However, in view of the promotion of self-directed learning, perhaps the responsibility for developing culturally sensitive attitudes and knowledge of gender issues in medicine should be placed more on the students. We should no longer rely exclusively on the curriculum or the physician-lecturers to guide students toward attitudes that will benefit them in their practice. Students should and are taking the initiative in exploring the issues affecting minorities, women, gays and lesbians that may be ignored or poorly represented in the curriculum.
In a recent study of the first-year class at the University of Western Ontario medical school, more than half of the students responded Yes to the question: "Did you join any extracurricular activities in order to learn more about a subject that is not taught in the curriculum?" Student groups such as Community Link, an outreach program in which students interact with homeless people and refugees, are supplementing the curriculum by fostering tolerance and sensitivity. OMEGA, the medical school's gender-awareness group, has held forums on issues affecting gay, lesbian and bisexual people and on violence against women in the context of medicine. These groups challenge students to examine their roles in the community and in the lives of their patients.
The diminishing number of lecture hours and the movement toward problem- and case-based learning are making students responsible for gaining knowledge of issues affecting community groups. Inclusive ideas should be reinforced through conventional teaching but can be discovered through other aspects of medical education.
Bindu Kumar
First-year medical student
University of Western Ontario
London, Ont.
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