Exploring Cross-Cultural Gender Issues in the Health Care System

Stanford's Child Family Health International program (CFHI) offered international health clerkships for U.S. medical students. CFHI believes that international health experiences increase a student's awareness of the national and international crisis of health inequalities and foster greater sensitivities toward a patient's cultural differences.

For all U.S. medical students who participate in international medical clerkships, understanding cross- cultural gender issues is critical to the success of their experiences. For this purpose, CFHI sought to improve orientation that students had prior to their departure. These new materials are available to all medical students.

CFHI was also able to implement a survey instrument aimed to heighten students' awareness about gender differences in other cultures and create an interactive Web site to orient students to cross cultural gender issues, specifically in Ecuador.