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Medical research and ethnic minorities

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr Michael McDonald, 225–6356 Agricultural Road, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2;
mcdonald@ethics.ubc.ca

Keywords: medical research; ethnic minorities

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

A few years ago, I was a member of an international and interdisciplinary research team that was developing "a cross-cultural approach to health care ethics". Our work resulted in a volume that is widely used in advanced ethics education for health care professionals.¹ At the conclusion of the research project, one of the team members decided to distil essential lessons in the form of short aphorisms. So she asked each member of the research team, "What single piece of wisdom would you draw from our three-year project on cross-cultural health care ethics?"

My response was instantaneous. I said the beginning of wisdom for a health care professional working in cross cultural contexts was, "To know one’s own culture!" Awareness of another person’s culture is most acute when it is in contrast with one’s own culture, for it is in such a comparative perspective that one becomes most aware . . . [Full text of this article]