[Education on ethnic diversity in health care in medical school: what can we learn from the American perspective?].

In April 2012, 20 medical students took part in a study tour to San Francisco, themed 'ethnic diversity in health care'. In this article we discuss four lessons learned from the perspective of these students. The delivery of culturally sensitive healthcare is becoming more important in the Netherlands as the ethnic minority population rate will continue to grow over the coming years. However, diversity education is not a structural component of medical curricula in the Netherlands to the same degree as in the USA where medical education pays a lot of attention to differences in health between ethnic minorities; and where there is also extensive research on this subject. We emphasize that diversity education should create awareness of differences in health outcomes between ethnic groups and awareness of one's own bias and stereotypical views. The implementation of diversity education is a challenge, which requires a change of image and the involvement of teachers from diverse medical disciplines.