The MEDIMIG project focuses on promoting culturally sensitive medical decision-making. This means taking into account both patients' cultural and personal preferences when making medical decisions.
Ongoing developments in health care are increasingly allowing physicians to make choices regarding the care of their patients. This is beneficial to patients, because it allows them to tailor care to their individual preferences. However, in order to reach a medical decision (together), patients are assumed to have a certain understanding of the available care options and, in addition, to be willing to make decisions about it. By law, every patient has the right to information about their health status and possible interventions, with the patient's consent being required to carry out any of those interventions.
European society is evolving into a super-diverse society, and this is leading to increased variation in how patients prefer to make decisions about their health, more specifically with regards to disclosure of medical information and family involvement in the decision-making process. This creates challenges in healthcare, as it is not always clear how and to what extent physicians can take into account patients' diverse preferences, which may be both personally and culturally determined.
In this research project, researchers from three different faculties (Medicine and Health Sciences, Social Sciences and Law) join forces to examine this topic from different perspectives. Researchers from the Faculty of Social Sciences will examine the diverse personal and cultural preferences towards decision-making of patients from various ethnic minority groups. On the other hand, researchers from the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences will explore the challenges encountered by physicians during medical consultations and communication with patients with a migration background and their family, and opportunities to improve these interactions. Finally, Law Faculty researchers will study what legal regulations are currently in place regarding patient rights, and whether the current legal framework surrounding medical decision-making leaves enough room for physicians to adapt the medical decision-making process to patient preferences, especially in light of the right to culturally appropriate healthcare. The researchers from the various faculties will constantly interact with each other during this study in order to generate enriching insights on how medical decision-making can be improved. In this way, the researchers hope to contribute to the realization of diversity-sensitive and patient-centered care in Belgium.