No matter where your medical career takes you, you will most likely encounter patients facing barriers to accessing health care. Everyone needs to prepare to care for underserved patients.
Erwin C. Wang, MHA, Megan Prior, Jenny M. Van Kirk, Stephen A. Sarmiento, Margaret M. Burke, MS, Christine Oh, MS, Eileen S. Moore, MD, and Stephen Ray Mitchell, MD
Policies and systems are slow to resolve structural disparities in access to insurance coverage and health care, but physicians can act now.
Shannon U. Waterman, MD, Amanda Kost, MD, Rachel Lazzar, MSW, and Sharon Dobie, MD, MCP
The Underserved Pathway at the University of Washington School of Medicine helps prepare future physicians to work with underserved populations by providing a foundation of practical knowledge and real-world experiences.
Residents can be better prepared to treat patients who are obese by understanding that care as an expression of the core principles of professionalism: responsibility, self-regulation, patient-centered care, and teamwork.
Physicians have an ethical responsibility to be functionally literate in health statistics and able to explain information such as a test’s positive predictive value to their patients.
Trainees’ expectations and cultural awareness should be managed, and their activities supervised, to create a global health elective that benefits both visiting students and the host country.
Trainees’ expectations and cultural awareness should be managed, and their activities supervised, to create a global health elective that benefits both visiting students and the host country.