Enfoque de visión intercultural en salud: entre la retórica y realidad del currículo de formación médica en la universidad ecuatoriana

The interpretive study presented is intended to analyze the roots of the disagreement about the coherence of the intercultural approach to health between rhetoric, of the institutions responsible for providing health care (Ministry of Public Health) and the reality of the medical training curriculum in the Ecuadorian university, situation linked to the historical perpetuation of an inequality profile in the access to health care of minority ethnic groups and subordinate cultures (“the others”) in the country. Methodologically this research is oriented under the qualitative paradigm of documentary character with interpretative analysis of a universe of documents directly related to the subject analyzed. The findings indicate that there is a gap between the guidelines addressed by the Ministry of Health and the reality of the curricular practice taught in the medical faculties in the country, as well as the treatment given to the ethnic population receiving the health service. In conclusion, it is highlighted that by contributing to the generation of an institutional proposal for the intercultural training in health of students of health sciences, elements of sustainability would be contributed to the process of inclusion and demand of the right to health of the populations diverse. Likewise, the reconciliation of perspectives is proposed through the “ecology of knowledge”, based on the theoretical conceptions of the Epistemologies of the South.