Assessing comfort with sexuality-related questions in medical students: "a little discomfort is better than a lifetime of suffering in silence".

Background: Sexual history-taking competence in medical students is an essential skill that they need to acquire. It requires them to learn to develop comfort in using sexuality-related language and raising the subject with patients. Sexual history exploration skills are inadequately taught in a significant number of medical schools.

The start of sexual health curriculum development and evaluation at Stellenbosch University.

Background: Stellenbosch University's (SU) Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences (FMHS), developed a sexual health course to be integrated throughout the revised medical curriculum.

Aim: To use the Sexual Health Education for Professionals Scale (SHEPS) to gather baseline and future follow-up data to inform curriculum development and evaluation.

Setting: The first-year medical students (N = 289) of the FMHS SU.