Preparing Future Physicians: A Reexamination of Communication and the Physician-Patient Relationship through the Lens of Culturally Sensitive Teaching and Learning Methodologies

Presently, we prepare future physicians to work with patients in a manner that makes distinctions between cross-cultural interactions and physician-patient communication in general. The authors argue that this distinction is an artificial one. Given that Biomedicine in and of itself can be considered a unique culture, all physician-patient interactions are cross–cultural by definition. To support this argument, the authors draw on the literature on culturally sensitive teaching and learning methodologies (CSTLM) in medical education to identify important elements of the culture of Biomedicine and underlying cultural assumptions out of which a physician’s medical paradigm arises and through which the communication skills necessary for building effective physician-patient relationships are shaped. We use the CSTLM nomenclature to emphasize the active teaching and learning that occurs in the process of moving towards cultural competence. This re-examination of the CSTLM literature suggests a framework that delineates why an expanded view of physician communication as being cross-cultural is essential for building physician-patient relationships that are capable of meeting the health challenges of the 21st Century.