Empowering Cultural Safety in Medical Education: Development of a cultural safety framework and training plan

With a growing focus on healthcare equity for Māori, the Council of Medical Colleges needed clear insights, based on evidence, to support a shift in training from cultural competence to cultural safety.  Medical Colleges faced a challenge – most training programmes still focused on cultural competence (learning about other cultures) rather than developing critical awareness of personal biases, power dynamics and structural inequities. A clear roadmap was needed to support Colleges to transform their training programmes.

Allen + Clarke partnered with the Council of Medical Colleges and Te Ohu Rata o Aotearoa (Te ORA) to develop a cultural safety framework and training plan. We completed a literature review of academic and grey literature and engaged with six medical colleges to assess their current curricula.  Using this research we were able to identify gaps in current practice, and develop an evidence based practical framework for medical colleges to design an effective cultural safety curriculum.

We delivered:

·         A comprehensive review of evidence in academic literature and grey material

·         Strategic analysis of current training practices across six diverse medical colleges

·         A practical rubric that clearly distinguished cultural safety from related concepts such as cultural competence

·         A practical framework that medical colleges can use to design an effective cultural safety curriculum.