Cross-cultural family medicine residency training

Over the past four years the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), Family Medicine Residency Program has developed a cross-cultural training program. The goal of the program is to prepare residents to function as effective health care providers in medically underserved areas with ethnically diverse patient populations. The required training activities include (1) a Spanish language course, (2) a clinical rotation in a community health clinic serving a Hispanic, medically underserved population, (3) a preceptorship in home-based health education and counseling for Spanish-speaking families, and (4) a set of cross-cultural sensitivity training activities that are part of the Residency Behavioral Science Program. The UCSD Cross-Cultural Family Medicine Training Program is described here as a prototype for consideration by other family medicine residency programs.