The Third National Conference on
Quality Health Care for Culturally Diverse Populations:
Advancing Effective Health Care through Systems Development, Data, and Measurement

October 2 - 4, 2002, Chicago, IL
Westin Chicago River North Hotel

Session D-7: Preparing effective trainers of cultural competence education

An Effective Strategy for Preparing Faculty to Teach Cultural Competency in Health Care

The imperative to eliminate health disparities has placed greater emphasis on the important role of faculty development in the creation of successful cultural competency education programs. Not only must faculty learn about the content for cultural competency curricula, but they must also acquire the skills to effectively facilitate emotionally charged discussions on topics such as racism and stereotypes. There is a paucity of information about effective approaches to introducing cultural competency in health professions education. If faculty are to serve as role models in providing effective cross-cultural care and to teach cultural competency programs, they must have the benefit of continuing professional education and training in cultural competency.

In this workshop, we describe a training of trainers approach to prepare multidisciplinary groups of health professionals to teach cultural competence. Such programs are an effective method for faculty development, in part because they emphasize program design and instructional facilitation techniques for teaching others. The training of trainers approach relies on experiential and simulation techniques to influence attitudes and transfer knowledge and skills to participants.

The presenters summarize experiences with training faculty from a variety of academic and clinical settings. The workshop includes approaches to assessing the needs of learners, using effective teaching tools and techniques, and evaluating such programs.

At the conclusion of the workshop participants will be able to:

1. Describe an evidence-based approach to creating a training of trainers workshop;
2. Identify successful approaches to preparing trainers;
3. Describe methods for assessing the effectiveness of trainings and evaluating impact on learners.

The presenters have designed, facilitated and evaluated interdisciplinary programs for over 100 faculty in train-the-trainer workshops. In addition, they have written curricula on teaching cultural competency in health care settings. This workshop will include a summary of data on an evaluation of train-the-trainer workshops.

Sunita Mutha, MD
Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine
Director
The Network program, Center for the Health Professions
University of California, San Francisco
3333 California Street, Suite 410
San Francisco, CA 94118
Phone: 415-502-4991
Fax: 415-502-4992
E-mail: mutha@itsa.ucsf.edu
Web: http://futurehealth.ucsf.edu

Carol Allen, MA
Associate Director
The Network program, Center for the Health Professions
University of California, San Francisco
Phone: 415-502-4594
Fax: 415-502-4992
E-mail: callen@itsa.ucsf.edu

Melissa Welch, MD, MPH
Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine, San Francisco General Hospital
Founder, Perspectives of Differences Diversity Training and Consultation for Health Professionals
Medical Director, Health Plan of San Mateo
Phone: 415-203-3936
E-mail: PODSDT@aol.com

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