Contextualizing Culture in Medical Practice: A Qualitative Study of Faculty at an Academic Health Center

• In Event: Measuring and Improving the Teaching Skills of Health Professions Faculty

Abstract

Medicine increasingly frames aspects of health disparities in terms of cultural differences between patients and physicians. However, medical education does not frame explicitly its understanding of culture despite the myriad ways other disciplines approach the construct. Conducted at a large academic health center, this study explored how primary care physicians frame culture. Faculty and resident physicians in primary care specialties provided open-ended responses regarding their perspective of culture. Faculty and resident physicians primarily framed culture in concrete terms where beliefs are somewhat stable and inescapable. However, residents do not attribute their competency to faculty. Our findings suggest that faculty and resident physicians believe culture to be important, but their understanding of the construct lends itself to stereotyping patients.

Authors

• Madison L. Gates, Virginia Tech

• Kelly D. Bradley, University of Kentucky