A Male Health Curriculum for Family Medicine Residency Training Programs in Canada

Abstract

Men die earlier than women in the majority of the countries in the world, including Canada. Men also seek medical care less frequently than their female counterparts and often rather late in the stage of their disease. As well, family physicians traditionally have had very poor, if any, training in male health issues during their residency training. This is true for Canadian family physicians, but also for most family physicians in the world. A literature search was performed to evaluate the training in male health issues around the world. There appears to be a scarcity of literature on this topic. An assessment was conducted to determine how much male health training is delivered in Canadian Family Medicine Residency Training Programs. It turned out to be none to very little in these programs. At the same time, a needs assessment was conducted to determine the need for male health training in these programs and what the content of such training should be. Based on the information obtained through this needs assessment, a draft male health curriculum was created and circulated to an Expert Panel for their critique. The feedback of the Expert Panel was then incorporated into the final version of a proposed curriculum on Male Health for Family Medicine Residency Training Program.