Medical school sexual health curriculum and training in the United States.

Background: With 19 million new sexually transmitted infections (STIs) annually and poor screening and counseling by physicians, there is a need to improve medical training in sexual health topics in the United States.

Purpose: To assess medical school sexual health curricula through student and faculty descriptions of training content, methods and effectiveness.

Methods: Nationwide telephone survey of 500 fourth-year medical students (M4s) and medical school curriculum offices.

Results: Many U.S. medical schools (41/92, 44%) lack formal sexual health curricula. Many medical students are uncomfortable taking sexual histories from 10-14-year-olds (87/499, 17.4%) and from adults > 75 years (119/498, 23.8%). Students who learned history-taking on patients were more likely (OR = 3.22) to be comfortable taking histories from 10-14-year-olds than those who did not. Risk reduction counseling was considered appropriate by more students than was risk avoidance counseling (99.4% vs. 74.2%, P < 0.001).

Conclusion: There are significant deficiencies in medical students' training on sexual health.