Emily - Final Personal Reflection Assignment

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Health Science

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Apr 3, 2024

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Personal Reflection Assignment Emily Giles-Duhamel (1124616) University of Guelph NUTR4070 - Nutrition Education Dr. Kathryn Walton Oct. 13 th , 2023

Assessment This past week in Nutrition Education, we learned about practicing cultural humility as a health professional. I found this content to be very interesting and educational as I have not yet learned about this in any of my previous nutrition courses. Depending on your racial, economic and social status, there can be great systematic disparities in the type of health care you receive. As health care professionals, the most important thing we must practice to reduce these discrepancies between one another is to practice cultural humility. Cultural humility involves understanding one's self and society's conditioned biases and prejudices to build respectful and trusting relationships with one another (First Nations Health Authority, n.d). Unfortunately, due to the great power imbalance between healthcare professionals and their patients, this humility is difficult to achieve. In the guest lecture, Anisha did a good job of explaining the concept of institutional power, which involves the control authorities have over others and their ability to make decisions for others (A. Mahajan, lecture, October 5, 2023). Only when we as a community put cultural humility into practice and reduce the power imbalances, is when we can reach health equity. Health equity goes beyond treating people equally as it involves treating people fairly depending on their needs and circumstances (National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, 2023). Making Connections The first thing that resonated with me was from the YouTube video posted by UCDPreHealth (2013) about cultural humility. The speaker emphasized that cultural humility is a lifelong commitment to self-reflection and self-criticism. I think this key term of "lifelong" is very important to have a grasp on. Practicing cultural humility is not just something you can choose to do when it is convenient for you. We will not see any change in the healthcare industry if healthcare professionals do not fully commit to becoming advocates and creating mutually beneficial partnerships with marginalized communities (UCDPreHealth, 2013). This concept resonated with me because I think it is a good mindset that applies to other social issues as well. It reminded me a lot of how many people take part in performative activism which involves outwardly pretending to care to gain positive reactions from their peers, however doing nothing nor fully committing themselves to create change. Although a lifelong commitment sounds intimidating, it's the only way that cultural humility will be obtained. Another concept that stood out to me was the power and privilege that Anisha spoke about in her guest lecture. This concept is important because power and privilege go hand in hand with one another. I don't think many people realize that if you have privilege, then you automatically hold power over people who don't (A. Mahajan, lecture, October 5, 2023).On one of Anisha's slides, she had a photo of the "wheel of power/privilege", which listed different categories. The outside of the wheel represents the marginalized and the middle of it represents power (A. Mahajan, lecture, October 5, 2023). The reason why this image resonated with me is that it challenged my pre-assumption of what it means to be "privileged". I never realized how privilege incorporates so many factors such as; citizenship, skin colour, education, ability, sexuality, neurodiversity, mental health, body size, housing, wealth, language and gender. This opened my eyes to recognizing my privilege which I think is the first step in reducing the power imbalances. Lastly, the final idea that resonated with me was the importance of language used in promoting health equity. After reading the "Language of Health Equity", I never realized that some of the daily words I use such as; empower, resilient, stakeholder, patient and serve are all words that reinforce the power imbalance (National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, 2023). Instead, I can use words that have the same meaning but create a redistribution of that power and are much more optimistic. I thought this was relevant to this Nutrition education course as we focus on nutrition communication. I will now be much more aware of choosing power-balancing language to foster healthy communication in my future assignments as a student and professional life. Conclusion

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