We strive to provide a medical school curriculum dedicated to fostering cultural awareness.
Healthcare delivery and our understanding of health and its social determinants is continuing to evolve rapidly. Our goal is to integrate cross-cultural care throughout the four years of medical school and to provide a pragmatic approach for training residents, fellows and faculty in culturally aware health care.
Beginning in 2020, Washington University will provide a unique educational experience through a new, innovative curriculum called the Gateway curriculum. The new curriculum will further integrate student community-based service learning with a longitudinal curriculum addressing social and structural determinants of health.
Our mission is to train future physicians to improve the lives of people everywhere by making quality care accessible to all. With a greater focus on physician advocacy and community engagement, our new curriculum will engage students to close gaps in care in our own community. As our students work with underserved populations in St. Louis, they’ll learn the critical skills necessary to help improve the health of communities everywhere.
The goals of our community engagement curricular pillar are aligned with those developed by the Society of General Internal Medicine Health Disparities Task Force, which states learners should:
- Gain knowledge of the existence and magnitude of health disparities, including their multifactorial etiology and the multiple solutions required to eliminate them
- Examine and understand the potential for mistrust, subconscious bias and stereotyping that practitioners, patients or both may bring to the clinical encounter
- Acquire the skills to effectively communicate and negotiate across cultures, including trust-building and timely utilization of culturally appropriate interpreter services
- Develop a commitment to reduce health disparities, particularly those caused by disparate health care
We’ve been long known for our flexible approach to medical education. Our curriculum not only preserves, but enhances this benefit, building in the time, opportunities and support you’ll need to pursue your passion.
Influencing medical professionals
Watch how the Office of Diversity Programs is influencing medical professionals by demonstrating the importance of providing culturally aware, equitable and compassionate care for all:
- Case-based presentations, grand rounds, journal clubs and discussions: These are tailored to clinical departments across the medical center, including new faculty orientation.
- Barnes-Jewish Center for Diversity and Cultural Competence: This center provides educational sessions using video teaching tools to explore unconscious biases and stereotyping and increase cross-cultural preparedness among medical trainees, faculty and staff.
- Diversity and inclusion training: Group-based training for departments, programs and other business units. Diversity and inclusion leaders from Human Resources provide a series of four, one-hour training sessions on the fundamentals of diversity education.