Drivers of Continuing Education Learning Preferences for Veterans Affairs Women's Health Primary Care Providers.

Introduction: Documented gaps in health professionals' training in women's health are a special concern for continuing education (CE). In the Veterans Affairs (VA) health care system, women veterans are a numerical minority, preferably assigned to designated women's health primary care providers (DWHPs). DWHPs need to maintain their knowledge and skills in women's health topics, in addition to general internal medicine topics.

Working with interpreters: how student behavior affects quality of patient interaction when using interpreters.

Background: Despite the prevalence of medical interpreting in the clinical environment, few medical professionals receive training in best practices when using an interpreter. We designed and implemented an educational workshop on using interpreters as part of the cultural competency curriculum for second year medical students (MSIIs) at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. The purpose of this study is two-fold: first, to evaluate the effectiveness of the workshop and second, if deficiencies are found, to investigate whether the deficiencies affected the quality of the patient encounter when using an interpreter.

Medical students' perceptions of their teachers' and their own cultural competency: implications for education.

Background: Enhancing the cultural competency of students is emerging as a key issue in medical education; however, students may perceive that they are more able to function within cross-cultural situations than their teachers, reducing the effectiveness of cultural competency educational efforts.

Objective: The purpose of our study was to compare medical students' perceptions of their residents, attendings, and their own cultural competency.

Design: Cross-sectional study.