Resistant and/or Receptive: The Role of Race and Cultural Competency in Professional Dental Education

• In Event: 322 - Section on Medical Sociology Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 14. Medical Education II

Abstract

The population of the United States is increasingly diverse yet the majority of healthcare workers remain predominately white. One popular technique to manage the practitioner-provider demographic discordance and minimize health disparities is to integrate cultural competency training into the professional education curriculum. Literature in the teaching and learning arena, however, indicates that students are often resistant to course content that challenges the culture of individualism and favors a structural approach to social issues. We developed and enrolled 88 first-year dental students in an on-line cultural competency course that includes key sociological concepts along with data on health disparities. Students completed a pre- and post-test and the final results indicate that, overall, the course successful but a more detailed analysis revealed that non-white students show more significant – and substantive - gains than white students.

Author

• Lorraine Evans, Georgia Regents University