The Exclusion of Indigenous Traditional Knowledge in the Higher Education: The Case of Traditional Medicine and the Mexican Medical Education

Abstract

This paper analyzes the level of inclusion of indigenous traditional knowledge about traditional medicine in Mexican medical training, showing an angle of the place that maintains cultural diversity in higher education nationally. Using a quantitative, cross-sectional, exploratory and descriptive design, instruments were applied to survey the 85 institutions registered with the Mexican Association of Colleges and Schools of Medicine (known by its Spanish acronym AMFEM); the data were analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Of these institutions, only 27.05% include teaching about traditional medicine in 36 subjects related to the topic, 50% of which is optional, 41.66% of short duration, 52.62% with few credit hours and, in some cases, with a pejorative orientation. It is noted that the area of the Mexican medical education reflects a broader political problem of asymmetry and inequality between stakeholders and their knowledge, so that the rejection of indigenous traditional knowledge in the Mexican medical education is only a reflection of the many other places where these groups, and their knowledge, have been excluded before.