Henrich Janet B
Department of Internal Medicine, Yale University School of Medicine, PO Box 208025, New Haven, CT 06520-8025, USA.
Acad Med. 2004 Apr;79(4):283-8. doi: 10.1097/00001888-200404000-00002.
Since the U.S. Congress first requested an assessment of women's health content in medical school curricula ten years ago, surveys indicate at least a two-fold increase in the number of schools with a women's health curriculum and no change in the number that offer a women's health clinical elective or rotation. Despite a marked increase in the number of schools with an office or program responsible for integration of women's health and gender-specific content into curricula, change has been modest. Reasons for this slow progress include uncertainty about the domain of women's health and what should be included in a curriculum, a lack of practical guidelines for implementation, and institutional resistance to change. The dominant factors that will influence future curriculum development are the increasing scientific knowledge base on sex and gender differences and the emerging scientific field of sex-based biology, both of which have potential to benefit the health of women. Evidence-based data on significant sex and gender differences will provide compelling reasons for schools to integrate this information into curricula, and new educational initiatives must further develop educational models to help implement change. As women's health becomes synonymous with the term "sex and gender differences," the challenge to schools is to address equally in their curricula those unique aspects of women's health that were part of the original intent of the congressional mandate.
自十年前美国国会首次要求对医学院课程中的女性健康内容进行评估以来，调查显示，开设女性健康课程的学校数量至少增加了两倍，而提供女性健康临床选修课程或轮转课程的学校数量没有变化。尽管负责将女性健康和性别特定内容纳入课程的办公室或项目的学校数量显著增加，但进展仍然不大。进展缓慢的原因包括女性健康领域以及课程中应包含哪些内容存在不确定性，缺乏实施的实用指南，以及机构对变革的抵制。影响未来课程发展的主要因素是关于性别差异的科学知识基础不断增加，以及新兴的基于性别的生物学科学领域，这两者都有可能使女性受益。关于显著性别差异的循证数据将为学校将这些信息纳入课程提供令人信服的理由，新的教育举措必须进一步开发教育模式以帮助实施变革。随着女性健康成为“性别差异”一词的同义词，学校面临的挑战是在课程中平等地处理女性健康的那些独特方面，这些方面是国会授权最初意图的一部分。
