Cultural Competence and Global Health: Perspectives for Medical Education - Position paper of the GMA Committee on Cultural Competence and Global Health.

Introduction: Routine medical care in Germany, Austria and Switzerland is being increasingly impacted by the cultural and linguistic diversity of an ever more complex world. Both at home and as part of international student exchanges, medical students are confronted with different ways of thinking and acting in relation to health and disease. Despite an increasing number of courses on cultural competence and global health at German-speaking medical schools, systematic approaches are lacking on how to integrate this topic into medical curricula. Methodological approach: This paper is based on a structured consensus-building process by a multidisciplinary committee composed of faculty and students. In a first step, a qualitative online survey was carried out in order to establish an inventory of definitions and concepts. After the second step, in which a literature search was conducted and definitions of global health and transcultural and intercultural competence were clarified, recommendations were formulated regarding content, teaching and institutional infrastructure. Based on small-group work and large-group discussions, different perspectives and critical issues were compiled using multiple feedback loops that served to ensure quality. Results: An inventory on the national and international level showed that great heterogeneity exists in regard to definitions, teaching strategies, teaching formats and faculty qualification. Definitions and central aspects considered essential to medical education were thus established for the use of the terms "cultural competence" and "global health". Recommendations are given for implementation, ranging from practical realization to qualification of teaching staff and education research. Outlook: High-quality healthcare as a goal calls for the systematic internationalization of undergraduate medical education. In addition to offering specific courses on cultural competence and global health, synergies would be created through the integration of cultural competence and global health content into the curricula of already existing subject areas. The NKLM (the national competence-based catalogue of learning objectives for undergraduate medical education) would serve as a basis for this.

"Getting by" in a Swiss Tertiary Hospital: the Inconspicuous Complexity of Decision-making Around Patients' Limited Language Proficiency.

BACKGROUND: While the need to address language barriers to provide quality care for all is generally accepted, little is known about the complexities of decision-making around patients' limited language proficiency in everyday clinical encounters. OBJECTIVE: To understand how linguistic complexities shape cross-cultural encounters by incorporating the perspective of both, patients and physicians. DESIGN: A qualitative hospital study with semi-structured interviews and participant-observation in a Swiss University Hospital. Thirty-two encounters were observed and 94 interviews conducted. PARTICIPANTS: Sixteen patients of Turkish and 16 of Albanian origin and all actors (administration, nurses, physicians, if required, interpreters) involved in the patients' entire process. MAIN APPROACH: Interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. A thematic content analysis was conducted using MAXQDA. For reporting, the COREQ guidelines were used. KEY RESULTS: Three themes were relevant to patients and physicians alike: Assessment of the language situation, the use of interpreters, and dealing with conversational limits. Physicians tend to assess patients' language proficiency by their body language, individual demeanor, or adequacy of responses to questions. Physicians use professional interpreters for "high-stakes" conversations, and "get by" through "low-stakes" topics by resorting to bilingual family members, for example. Patients are driven by factors like fearing costs or the wish to manage on their own. High acceptance of conversational limits by patients and physicians alike stands in stark contrast to the availability of interpreters. CONCLUSIONS: The decision for or against interpreter use in the "real world" of clinical care is complex and shaped by small, frequently inconspicuous decisions with potential for suboptimal health care. Physicians occupy a key position in the decision-making to initiate the process of medical interpreting. The development and testing of a conceptual framework close to practice is crucial for guiding physicians' assessment of patients' language proficiency and their decision-making on the use of interpreting services.

Their view: difficulties and challenges of patients and physicians in cross-cultural encounters and a medical ethics perspective.

BACKGROUND: In todays' super-diverse societies, communication and interaction in clinical encounters are increasingly shaped by linguistic, cultural, social and ethnic complexities. It is crucial to better understand the difficulties patients with migration background and healthcare professionals experience in their shared clinical encounters and to explore ethical aspects involved. METHODS: We accompanied 32 migrant patients (16 of Albanian and Turkish origin each) during their medical encounters at two outpatient clinics using an ethnographic approach (participant observation and semi-structured interviews with patients and healthcare professionals). Overall, data of 34 interviews with patients and physicians on how they perceived their encounter and which difficulties they experienced are presented. We contrasted the perspectives on the difficult aspects and explore ethical questions surrounding the involved issues. RESULTS: Patients and physicians describe similar problem areas, but they have diverging perspectives on them. Two main themes were identified by both patients and physicians: >patients' behaviour in relation to doctors' advice< and > relationship issues<. CONCLUSIONS: A deeper understanding of the difficulties and challenges that can arise in cross-cultural settings could be provided by bringing together healthcare professionals' and patients' perspectives on how a cross- cultural clinical encounter is perceived. Ethical aspects surrounding some of the difficulties could be highlighted and should get more attention in clinical practice and research.

Hymen Restoration: "My" Discomfort, "Their" Culture, and Women's Missing Voice.

The discourse among medical and scientific communities on hymen restoration is largely missing the voice of women affected. This article calls for a more nuanced reflection on women's real life experiences and the complexities inherent in the negotiation process about the surgery going beyond "ideologies" and the extremes of rape and threats to life. By taking the clinical experience of a woman who requests restoration surgery before her arranged marriage, this article illuminates the grey zone beyond these extremes and explores an individual woman's options for making her own choices.

Restoration of virginity: women's demand and health care providers' response in Switzerland.

INTRODUCTION: As a result of transnational migration, health institutions are faced with growing demand for "restoration" of virginity. The practice of hymen reconstruction constitutes a challenge for health care providers in medical, ethical, judicial, social, and cultural dimensions, for which they are not well prepared. AIM: The aim of the presented nationwide survey was to investigate the experience of Swiss gynecologists with women requesting hymen reconstruction. METHODS: A questionnaire specifically designed for this purpose was sent to 100 public hospitals. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Main outcome measures included demands for (number of requests, origin of women) and attitudes toward hymen reconstruction (requests granted, decision-making for or against intervention, surgical technique applied, problems associated with the requests for hymen repair, cost coverage, need for further information) in Switzerland. RESULTS: The response rate was 68%. Of the 43 clinics (63.2%) confronted with requests for hymen reconstruction, 38 (90.5%) claimed to see up to five patients per year. The predominantly mentioned countries of origin were Turkey in the German-speaking part and Arab countries in the French-speaking part. More than half of the clinics (27/64.3%) reported that they always (12/28.6%) or mostly (15/35.7%) granted the request. Decision for surgery was made after intensive counseling in 44.2% and on demand of the patient after brief counseling in 32.7%. The so-called approximation method was the most frequently applied surgical technique. A third of the participants (19/35.2%) reported problems with confidentiality. More than half of the clinics expressed their need for further information on this topic. CONCLUSIONS: Hymen reconstruction is rarely performed in Switzerland, even though two-thirds of the responding hospitals are confronted with this issue several times per year. No guidelines exist on how health professionals should deal with these requests. Interdisciplinary research on how to meet the needs of women and health care providers in such cross-cultural encounters is needed.

Women's experiences of the abortion law in Cameroon: "What really matters".

While prosecutions of women who have had an illegal abortion are rare in Cameroon, women who have a legitimate claim to a legal abortion, e.g. following rape, can rarely take advantage of it. This is because the law in Cameroon is not applied, either when it is violated or when it is indicated. This paper examines the histories of four young women who became pregnant and had an abortion in the Anglophone region of the Cameroon Grassfields. Three of them became pregnant following rape or sexual coercion, in one case by the girl's priest, in the second case by her employer's son, and in the third case by a stranger. The fourth young woman, who sold sex for survival money and food, had two abortions while in prison for committing infanticide following a failed attempt to abort an earlier pregnancy. The four young women were interviewed as part of a qualitative, hospital-based study among 65 women who had had abortions in 1996-97. The women's affecting personal histories illuminate the reality of living under a restrictive abortion law, the troubling conditions in which they have to manage their lives, and the harsh circumstances in which they become pregnant and seek (but may not find) a safe abortion.

Abortion in the moral world of the Cameroon grassfields.

Despite high levels of unsafe abortion in Cameroon, remarkably limited attention has been paid to the moral dilemma for women who seek abortions. In-depth interviews were conducted with 65 Cameroonian Grasslands women within a hospital-based study, complemented by participant observation, use of hospital records and interviews with key informants. The paper demonstrates how a hidden moral code on abortion helps women to exercise individual agency despite prevailing moral values. At the same time, women's desire to keep abortion secret can impede adequate medical treatment, which in turn can increase the risk of complications and mortality. Abortion was more often condemned by the women because of the risk to their lives and of infertility rather than for religious reasons or because it is illegal. However, the economic and social realities of everyday life often overrode their fear of complications when they needed to end a pregnancy. The paper concludes that women have already broken through Cameroon's stringent restrictions on abortion through their practice. There is a large gap between what is permitted under the current law, which is colonial in origin, and women's need for legal abortion on broad socio-economic grounds. This calls for reflection on liberalisation of the present law.