[Medical education in the Netherlands: little attention paid to the cultural diversity of patients].

OBJECTIVE: To ascertain how much attention is given to cultural diversity in the eight medical faculties in Dutch universities.
DESIGN: Interviews.
METHOD: In the period January-June 2001 interviews were held with 76 people in medical faculties: policy makers, teachers and students.
RESULTS: Medical courses scarcely devoted any attention to the fact that physicians need to deal with a multicultural society. Only the medical courses at the Free University of Amsterdam and Nijmegen University had included a compulsory module in this subject. The other universities were aiming for a more integrated treatment of the subject. However, for the time being, the acquisition of information about cultural diversity (specific diseases in different ethnic groups, different conceptions about health and disease and possibilities for solving communication problems) depended mainly on the personal interest of the teacher and the choices of the medical students.
CONCLUSION: Cultural diversity receives little attention in the medical courses at the eight Dutch university medical faculties. A national approach to this problem is therefore recommended, with the setting up of an interfaculty workgroup to develop good teaching material on subjects related to cultural diversity.