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Editor-Those students who were wise enough to choose Leeds University
Medical School
to study medicine will have a very good grounding in cultural diversity.
All third year
students are taught, in groups of 25, the Lifecycle course.
In 10 successive weekly sessions of two hours, students are presented
with case studies
starting with pre birth and going through to death and mourning. The cases
are discussed
in terms of (a) basic science (b) clinical and pathological (c) cultural
(d) ethical and legal.
There are two tutors per group, a clinician and a philosopher or ethicist.
Most of the case
studies involve patients from ethnic backgrounds, so at the end of the
course - which is
very popular amongst both students and tutors - students will have a firm
knowledge of
how different ethnic groups approach the various milestones in life.
Michael M. Rivlin
Part time tutor, School of Philosophy
University of Leeds LS2 9JT
Dogra N, Connin S, Gill P, Spencer J, Turner M. Teaching of cultural
diversity in medical
Schools in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland: cross sectional
questionnaire
survey. BMJ;330:403-4
Teaching Cultural Diversity in Medical Schools
Teaching Cultural Diversity in Medical Schools 1
Editor-Those students who were wise enough to choose Leeds University
Medical School
to study medicine will have a very good grounding in cultural diversity.
All third year
students are taught, in groups of 25, the Lifecycle course.
In 10 successive weekly sessions of two hours, students are presented
with case studies
starting with pre birth and going through to death and mourning. The cases
are discussed
in terms of (a) basic science (b) clinical and pathological (c) cultural
(d) ethical and legal.
There are two tutors per group, a clinician and a philosopher or ethicist.
Most of the case
studies involve patients from ethnic backgrounds, so at the end of the
course - which is
very popular amongst both students and tutors - students will have a firm
knowledge of
how different ethnic groups approach the various milestones in life.
Michael M. Rivlin
Part time tutor, School of Philosophy
University of Leeds LS2 9JT
Dogra N, Connin S, Gill P, Spencer J, Turner M. Teaching of cultural
diversity in medical
Schools in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland: cross sectional
questionnaire
survey. BMJ;330:403-4
Competing interests:
None declared
Competing interests: No competing interests