Gender perspectives in medical education

Medical students have to go through an incredibly vast number of voluminous textbooks in their undergraduate years. But most of us learn next to nothing about the intricacies of the social determinants of health and the larger socio-political-cultural spaces we will have to negotiate. Without any exposure to the larger patriarchal, economic and historical systems, which are bound to collide with our textbook learning, we will be highly unprepared to locate our own biomedical skills within the larger context. The objective of this article is to analyse the current level of gender sensitivity in the textbooks being used for undergraduate medical training, and the potential impact that this has on developing attitudes towards a gender and rights-based approach.