Gender aspects have been insufficiently incorporated into medical training so far, albeit it may be vital that patients recieve a gender-specific treatment. Scientific studies indicate, for example, that heart attacks in women are detected much later than in men. Men, on the other hand, are taken care of less optimally when it comes to preventing secondary disease brought about by type 2 diabetes. Ideally, medical students should start dealing with gender aspects as soon as possible in the course of their medical training. The distinction between the biological (sex) and social gender plays an important role as biological and social differences both influence the onset and course of disease. Besides the physiological differences, interactions between doctors and patients with regards to clinical diagnostics and teatment should be considered, too. 

With this joint project between the medical faculties of the Universities of Münster and Essen-Duisburg entitled "gender-sensitive teaching modules in medicine", the gender-sensitive knowledge of students, research assistants and university lectures was recorded and analysed. For this purpose, a corresponding online-questionnaire was developed. Based in the findings of this survey, an interdisciplinary, medical-didactic teaching module will be elaborated and tested within a pilot project.

This project is sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Education and Redearch and the EU European Social Fund (01 FP 1101).