Cultural Competency Interventions During Medical School: a Scoping Review and Narrative Synthesis.

Many medical accreditation bodies agree that medical students should be trained to care for diverse patient populations. However, the teaching methods that medical schools employ to accomplish this goal vary widely. The purpose of this work is to summarize current cultural competency teaching for medical students and their evaluation methods. A scoping review was completed by searching the databases PubMed, Scopus, MedEdPORTAL, and MEDLINE for the search terms "medical education" and "cultural competency" or "cultural competence." Results were summarized using a narrative synthesis technique. One hundred fifty-four articles on cultural competency interventions for medical students were systematically identified from the literature and categorized by teaching methods, length of intervention, and content. Fifty-six articles had a general focus, and ninety-eight articles were focused on specific populations including race/ethnicity, global health, socioeconomic status, language, immigration status, disability, spirituality at the end of life, rurality, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer. About 54% of interventions used lectures as a teaching modality, 45% of the interventions described were mandatory, and 9.7% of interventions were not formally evaluated. The authors advocate for expansion and more rigorous analysis of teaching methods, teaching philosophies, and outcome evaluations with randomized controlled trials that compare the relative effectiveness of general and population-specific cultural competency interventions.

Epidemiology of obesity and chronic kidney disease.

The obesity epidemic has reached nephrology in the form of increasing numbers of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) caused by obesity-related metabolic disorders, IgA nephropathy, stone disease, and a unique glomerulopathy now known as obesity-related glomerulopathy (ORG). Obesity has been identified as an independent risk factor for CKD, and patients with central adiposity or high waist-to-hip ratios appear to have the highest risk. The metabolic syndrome is a risk factor for albuminuria and CKD, and studies now show that the risk of CKD increases with increased numbers of components of the metabolic syndrome. Obesity is not just a bystander or accelerator of other kidney diseases, but has unique histopathologic characteristics that can cause progressive kidney disease. ORG may accompany and worsen IgA nephropathy, urate nephropathy, and possibly even diabetic nephropathy. The origins of obesity-related kidney disease can be traced to insufficient glomerular complement from birth, and low birth weight may be an important precursor to obesity and its many comorbidities. Intervention strategies may need to target prenatal care through the elderly to combat this problematic epidemic.