An Overview of Undergraduate Training in Cultural Competency and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry

Multiculturalism is a familiar concept in many developed countries. While cultural competency training is part of most medical curricula, training in cultural psychiatry at the undergraduate level is typically minimal. It is important that medical graduates are both culturally competent and able to respond to the mental health needs of patients from diverse cultures. This paper provides an overview of the teaching of cultural competency and cultural psychiatry to medical students and discusses aspects of cultural psychiatry that could be included in medical courses. It was concluded that there needs to be more attention given to the teaching of cultural psychiatry in the undergraduate curriculum. The challenge for medical curricula is in the provision of cultural psychiatry content to ensure that students are able effectively to communicate, assess, and treat patients from different cultural backgrounds by the time they graduate and begin their professional careers.