Family medicine in a culturally diverse world: a solution-oriented approach to common cross-cultural problems in medical encounters.

BACKGROUND: Using cultural sensitivity in the training of family practice residents generally results in positive consequences for patient care. However, certain potential problems associated with cross-cultural educational efforts deserve examination, including patient stereotyping, assumptive bias, and the confounding of ethnicity with class and socioeconomic status. Even awareness of these pitfalls may not guarantee physician avoidance of other barriers to effective patient care, such as communication difficulties, diagnostic inaccuracies, and unintentional patient exploitation. Despite these complications, future family physicians must continue to participate in educational activities that increase sensitivity toward and understanding of patients of different ethnicities. This article discusses certain features characteristic of the ways in which cultural variables operate in the doctor-patient encounter and identifies specific ways in which residents can successfully elicit and use cultural knowledge to enhance patient care.