Curriculum Co-design for Cultural Safety Training of Medical Students in Colombia: Protocol for a Qualitative Study

Cultural safety in medical training encourages practitioners, in a culturally congruent way, to acknowledge the validity of their patients' world-views. Lack of cultural safety is linked to ethnic health disparities and ineffective health services. Colombian medical schools currently provide no training in cultural safety. The aim of this qualitative study is to: (i) document the opinions of stakeholders on what a curriculum in cultural safety should teach to medical students; and (ii) use this understanding to co-design a curriculum for cultural safety training of Colombian medical students. Focus groups will explore opinions of traditional medicine users, medical students, and cultural safety experts regarding the content of the curriculum; deliberative dialogue between key cultural safety experts will settle the academic content of the curriculum. The research develops participatory methods in medical education that might be of relevance in other subjects.