Looking through the �gender lens� in medical education

Nathalie Dunleavy


	Dr. Nahid Azad

Just as in history, politics and communications, gender studies has crept its way into yet another discipline. But don't be so quick to dismiss it as another feminist mantra. Gender issues may be more relevant to what you know about your health than you think.

A partner in the Gender and Health Collaborative Curriculum Project, Dr. Nahid Azad is spearheading its integration in the medical education curriculum at the University of Ottawa. An associate professor Dr. Azad is director of the University’s Office of Gender and Equity Issues.

“We are not asking for a separate lecture,” said Dr. Azad, “but to have gender integrated into all aspects of the curriculum.” She believes gender and health should be incorporated into the curriculum to allow physicians to develop the knowledge, skills and attitudes to properly treat patients and to continue to promote it in teaching.

The Gender and Health project’s Web site provides evidence-based information that can be integrated into the medical education curriculum. Physicians learn not only about disease management, but about the social constructs that affect individual health. Groundbreaking in its field, the project was presented earlier this month at Slice of Life 2006, the international meeting for medical multimedia developers and educators at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland.

Funded by the Ontario Women’s Health Council, the project is led by representatives and students from Ontario’s six medical schools, as well as members of the Undergraduate Education and the Gender Issues Committees of the Council of Ontario Faculties of Medicine. It was launched in May at the 2006 Medical Education Conference in London, Ontario.

“We want to see how the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviour of doctors has changed,” said Dr. Azad.

The World Health Organization defines gender in health as an approach that “considers the critical roles that social and cultural factors and power relations between women and men play in promoting or impeding health.”

But what’s the difference between gender and sex? Dr. Azad explained that sex is the biological aspect that determines men and women, whereas gender is the social context.

A common area where gender in health is overlooked is in research. “People don’t realize that research, such as that conducted on drugs, has mostly been done on men, and its effects are assumed to be the same for women,” said Dr. Azad.

One of the Web site’s attributes is a “gender lens,” which allows users to take gender into consideration when looking at medical literature such as research.

“We want physicians to treat us based on gender and age groups, but it’s not currently being done,” said Dr. Azad.