Culture and Medicine
Our mission is to promote training in cultural proficiency among medical students, staff, residents, and faculty who are caring for all patients irrespective of ethnicity, culture, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or disability. In order to do this, we provide a medical education that is enriched by the many diverse perspectives offered by a diverse student body. In addition, we aim to provide a medical education environment that supports the growth of all individuals to become culturally proficient medical providers. This entails creating opportunities within the curriculum to gain additional training in cultural self awareness, respect for self and others, cultural proficiency, and an expectation that students, residents and faculty will be using these skills on a daily basis with patients and colleagues. As such, medical education and cultural proficiency work is a work in progress, a collaboration of many voices, many pathways.
Within OMCA, we have created two Centers that address these issues on a daily basis - the Center for Cultural Proficiency in Medical Education (CC-PriME) and the Native American Center of Excellence (NACOE). Under the umbrella of these two high profile, powerful Centers, we have developed a number of activities that support our mission of diversity and cultural proficiency in medical education.