Improving the Management of Children with Fevers by Healers in Native Rural Areas in the South of Ecuador.

Background: Indigenous populations are represented among the poor and disadvantaged in rural areas. High rates of infectious diseases are observed in indigenous child populations, and fever as a general symptom is common.

Objective: We aim to improve the skills of healers in rural indigenous areas in the South of Ecuador for managing children with fevers.

Culturally adapted flowcharts in obstetric emergencies: a participatory action research study.

Introduction: Maternal mortality is a health problem in developing countries and is the result of several factors such as sociodemographic and economic inequalities and difficulties in accessing the health services. In addition, training strategies in obstetric emergencies targeting the non-medical personnel such as traditional midwives are scarce. The focus of this study is to develop learning and communication bridges on the management of obstetric emergencies and on policies of patients' referral to the biomedical health system in rural areas.

Perceptions of Ecuadorian indigenous healers on their relationship with the formal health care system: barriers and opportunities.

Background: The new paradigm of intercultural policies focuses on rethinking the common public culture. In Ecuador, the "Buen Vivir" plan seeks to incorporate the ancestral medical knowledge, experience and beliefs of traditional healers into the formal health services. This study explores views on the formal health system from the perspective of the healers belonging to the Kichwa and Shuar ethnicities in the South of Ecuador.

Towards an indigenous definition of health: an explorative study to understand the indigenous Ecuadorian people's health and illness concepts.

Backgrounds: An intercultural society facilitates equitable and respectful interrelations. Knowing and understanding each other's sociocultural and linguitic contexts is a prerequisite for an intercultural society. This study explores the concepts of health and illness among healers of indigenous ethnicities in Southern Ecuador.

Culturally Competent in Medical Education - European Medical Teachers' Self-Reported Preparedness and Training Needs to Teach Cultural Competence Topics and to Teach a Diverse Class.

This article was migrated. The article was marked as recommended. Background Health inequalities related to culture and ethnicity may be reduced by training future health care providers.

Consensus study to define appropriate inaction and inappropriate inertia in the management of patients with hypertension in primary care.

Objectives: To elaborate and validate operational definitions for appropriate inaction and for inappropriate inertia in the management of patients with hypertension in primary care.

Design: A two-step approach was used to reach a definition consensus. First, nominal groups provided practice-based information on the two concepts.

Defining a framework for medical teachers' competencies to teach ethnic and cultural diversity: Results of a European Delphi study.

Background: Medical students need to be trained in delivering diversity-responsive health care but unknown is what competencies teachers need. The aim of this study was to devise a framework of competencies for diversity teaching.

Methods: An open-ended questionnaire about essential diversity teaching competencies was sent to a panel.

Investigating empathy in interpreter-mediated simulated consultations: An explorative study.

Objective: To explore i) the ways in which empathic communication is expressed in interpreter-mediated consultations; ii) the interpreter's effect on the expression of empathic communication.

Methods: We coded 9 video-recorded interpreter-mediated simulated consultations by using the Empathic Communication Coding System (ECCS) which we used for each interaction during interpreter-mediated consultations. We compared patients' empathic opportunities and doctors' responses as expressed by the patients and doctors and as rendered by the interpreters.

General practitioners' justifications for therapeutic inertia in cardiovascular prevention: an empirically grounded typology.

Objective: To construct a typology of general practitioners' (GPs) responses regarding their justification of therapeutic inertia in cardiovascular primary prevention for high-risk patients with hypertension.

Design: Empirically grounded construction of typology. Types were defined by attributes derived from the qualitative analysis of GPs' reported reasons for inaction.

Impact of family medicine clerkships in undergraduate medical education: a systematic review.

Objective: Synthesise evidence about the impact of family medicine/general practice (FM) clerkships on undergraduate medical students, teaching general/family practitioners (FPs) and/or their patients.

Data Sources: Medline, ERIC, PsycINFO, EMBASE and Web of Knowledge searched from 21 November to 17 December 2013. Primary, empirical, quantitative or qualitative studies, since 1990, with abstracts included.

Are recent graduates enough prepared to perform obstetric skills in their rural and compulsory year? A study from Ecuador.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to assess the possible mismatch of obstetrical skills between the training offered in Ecuadorian medical schools and the tasks required for compulsory rural service.

Setting: Primary care, rural health centres in Southern Ecuador.

Participants: A total of 92 recent graduated medical doctors during their compulsory rural year.

The concept and definition of therapeutic inertia in hypertension in primary care: a qualitative systematic review.

Background: Therapeutic inertia has been defined as the failure of health-care provider to initiate or intensify therapy when therapeutic goals are not reached. It is regarded as a major cause of uncontrolled hypertension. The exploration of its causes and the interventions to reduce it are plagued by unclear conceptualizations and hypothesized mechanisms.

HIV testing in primary care: feasibility and acceptability of provider initiated HIV testing and counseling for sub-Saharan African migrants.

Provider-initiated HIV testing and counseling (PITC) is recommended to reduce late HIV diagnoses, common among Sub-Saharan African migrants (SAM) residing in Europe. Primary care represents an ideal entry point for PITC. To support Flemish general practitioners (GPs), we developed a culturally sensitive PITC tool.

Learning intimate examinations with simulated patients: the evaluation of medical students' performance.

Background: For fifth-year's undergraduates of the medical school, a project with simulated patients (Intimate Examination Associates, IEA) was implemented in 2002 at the University of Antwerp. In this project, students from the new curriculum (NC) learned uro-genital, rectal, gynaecological and breast examination in healthy, trained volunteers and received feedback focused on personal attitude, technical and communication skills. Former curriculum (FC) students however trained these skills only during internship in the sixth year after a single training on manikins.

Unintentional failure to assess for experience in senior undergraduate OSCE scoring.

Context: One goal of undergraduate assessment is to test students' (future) performance. In the area of skills testing, the objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) has been of great value as a tool with which to test a number of skills in a limited time, with bias reduction and improved reliability. But can OSCEs measure undergraduate internship expertise in basic clinical skills?

Methods: Undergraduate students (n = 32) were given a questionnaire listing 182 basic clinical skills.

Correlates of safe sex behaviour among low-educated adolescents of different ethnic origin in Antwerp, Belgium.

Background: Several reports suggest that low educated adolescents of ethnic minority origin are at a higher risk of acquiring a sexually transmitted infection (STI) than autochthonous teens. On the other hand, focus group research with young Moroccan boys revealed a positive attitude towards condom use; they claim to use a condom even more frequently than their Belgian peers. The aim of this study is to document the behavioural, educational and social correlates that influence the use of condoms among low educated adolescents of different origin.

Intimate examination teaching with volunteers: implementation and assessment at the University of Antwerp.

Objectives: Teaching intimate physical examinations in medical schools generates practical, didactical and ethical problems. At the University of Antwerp, a unique program with intimate examination assistants (IEA) was implemented for fifth year's undergraduate students. They learn gynaecological and urological skills in healthy volunteers.

Sexual behaviour of second generation Moroccan immigrants balancing between traditional attitudes and safe sex.

Young Moroccan Islamic immigrants are balancing the challenges of modern society and the influences of their cultural and social backgrounds. Prevention and information programs need insights into their knowledge, attitudes and behaviour concerning choice of partner, sexuality, contraception, STD and AIDS prevention. In a qualitative research project, Moroccan adolescents were invited to focus groups.