1 - Education in Sexuality in the Medical Curriculum

Abstract

Medical curricula have been deficient in the area of education in sexuality, and it is only over the last decade or so that medical schools in the UK and abroad have recognized the importance of teaching human sexual physiology and sexuality. Attention in this discussion of education in sexuality in the medical curricula is directed to the following: present status of sex education in British schools and in medical schools; a suggested component of human sexuality in the undergraduate medical curriculum (learning objectives and strategy for introducing education in sexuality in the medical curriculum); and postgraduate education in sexual matters. Secondary schools, whether comprehensive, grammar, or private, have been slow to develop cognitive learning in such topics as the place of sexual drive within and without marriage, variations in sexual orientation, and the technicalities of various contraceptives methods. They have done even less to encourage the development of positive responsible attitudes to human sexuality. Students at the time of arrival at a medical school will have many gaps in their knowledge of the commonplace in human sexuality and in reproduction. If they have positive, healthy, and responsible attitudes toward their own sexual drives and to the sexuality of others, it is only because they are among the minority whose parents have been able to transmit them to their offspring. The Royal Commission on Medical Education (Todd report 1965-1968) identified deficiencies in the sex education of Britain's doctors and recommended that medical students should learn about the reproductive organs and their physiology and should also have an awareness of the wide implications of the problems of fertility and infertility and know something about marital problems and their management. In the older and well established medical schools, the teaching of human sexuality, especially in the earlier preclinical part of the course, depends upon enthusiasts, persuasion and a desire to interest basic and clinical disciplines. The General Medical Council in Britain has recommended such developments, and these are slowly being implemented. Postgraduate education programs, and especially those for training gynecologists, now recognize the need for all gynecologists to have an awareness of and sensitivity to psychosexual problems. A basic requirement for all gynecologists is comfort in dealing with sexual concerns.