In an effort to educate medical students on how to deal with an increasingly diverse patient population, the UB's School of Medicine and Biological Sciences was recently granted $600,000 from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute to create a Cultural Competency Training Program.
Under the direction of Dr. Kimberly Griswold, an associate professor specializing in family medicine and psychiatry, the "Medical Training in Diversity" grant will be allotted over a five-year period, and will expose students from the School of Health Professions and the School of Nursing to various cultural differences that can hinder the doctor-client relationship.
"(The program is) to improve and enhance the training in cultural diversity for medical students and allied health professionals," Griswold said. "It's important as a doctor to be aware of these cultural practices so we can be aware of them and work around them, or at least be sensitive to them."
"Because of the health disparities occurring in different patient populations, we're sometimes not reaching patients the way we should to get different healthcare outcomes," she said.
Griswold is currently designing the program with the hopes of permanently implementing it into the medical school's curriculum, with the help of Judith Schipengrover, the assistant educational research consultant for the program.
The project is perfectly suited to their educational backgrounds; Griswold received her master's degree in public health from Yale University, later graduating with her medical degree in family medicine in 1994. Schipengrover has her masters in education.
The work they are doing is based on the need to provide medical care for diverse populations in Buffalo.
"We're working on the development of cases that involve ethnic diversity," Schipengrover said. "The curriculum is designed to offer materials that would provide medical students with resources to assist refugee populations."
As part of the project, Griswold is heading a research campaign to provide background information.
"We'll be working with a diversity based council, based at the medical school, and we'll be interviewing different patients from different communities in Buffalo to get their point of view and feedback on healthcare," Griswold said.
Griswold has implemented a variety of factors into the program to help doctors learn to care about patients with special needs based on their cultural differences, and to ultimately be able to accommodate the individual needs of their patients.
"We would be providing things like a diversity case series based on diverse populations," Griswold said. "It depends on what the patient needs."
For instance, if a patient does not speak English, the doctor would need to find an ulterior mode of communication. Having a background and working knowledge of various cultures and cultural beliefs regarding healthcare can only improve the care the patient receives, according to Griswold.
"There are things from different cultures that, as a physician, you need to be aware of. Sometimes you can work around them, and sometimes it's impossible to work around them, but it's important for us to at least be aware of these limitations so we can be sensitive to them," Griswold said.
According to Schipengrover, an additional aim of the program is to decrease health disparities in the way refugee and lower income populations are treated, and to create a model program for serving multiple ethnic populations. The case studies conducted in Buffalo will help support this endeavor.
Diana DeMarco, a junior special education and Spanish major at Daemon Collegee, plans to attend UB's medical school upon graduation, and feels the program might help certain patients feel more comfortable seeking medical treatment.
"I think this study would really help make people of different ethnic backgrounds feel more comfortable seeking medical assistance," DeMarco said. "I think the program would really benefit students like me. We all need to be more sensitive towards the needs of people of different cultures."
In the meantime, Griswold is excited for the changes the program could have within the medical community.
"I hope to improve the way different healthcare professionals deal with patients," she said.
