Cultural Competency Analysis

Cultural competency aids in closing the “disparities gap” in health care. ("OMH," 2012, para. 2) In doing so, health professionals and their clients are better able to discuss concerns without cultural differences getting in the way of effective communication and problem solving. Being respectful of and sensitive to the client’s health beliefs, culture, values, and diverse needs can bring positive outcomes within treatment and patient care. After all, is it not the main job of the health care provider to ensure patient trust? Open forms of communication when dealing with client issues can only be provided if the patient is comfortable with his provider and believes his

Cultural competency can be viewed as an ongoing journey of commitment and active engagement through the process of cultural awareness, knowledge, skills and cultural encounter (Coolen, 2012).Trust is the underlying purpose behind cultural competency in the development of health care provider and patient relationship. Health care professionals need to become more sensitive, respectful and attentive to the patients cultural beliefs and practices. Self-awareness is particularly important when communicating where barriers exists, unconscious prejudices may hinder the successful building of therapeutic relationships. In order to provide culturally sensitive pain management, a patients pain must be considered within the context of the individual’s

I have learned that it is important that educators  and health providers be trained on cultural competency to understand the population they are serving. Marks, Sims, and Osher (King, Sims, & Osher, n.d.) define cultural competency  as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enables that system, agency, or those professionals to work effectively in cross–cultural situations" ( as cited in Cross et al., 1989; Isaacs & Benjamin, 1991). Health providers and educators should investigate demographic patterns or trends in the place where they live and work. This brings awareness of the types of cultures that they might come across when they are working with people. Organizations should integrate and implement policies that promote the value of  diversity, self-assessment, manage the dynamics of difference, acquire and institutionalize cultural knowledge, and adapt to diversity and the cultural contexts of communities they serve (Georgetown  University, 2004). Georgetown University (2004) also stresses that culture competency grows gradually and is always open for improvement.

Cultural competency is a set of appropriate behaviours, attitudes and policies among professionals and enables them to work efficiently in cross-cultural situations (NCCC, 2006). A culturally competent health care system can eliminate cultural inequities, provide greater quality of care, and have less patient dissatisfaction and more positive health consequences. A conclusion reached in a study (Palafox et al., 2002) states, culture influences the outcome of medical examination and; therefore, it is vital to provide culturally competent health care services. Cultural competency is especially important in the context of radiographic examination due to the variety of culturally different patients a radiographer comes in contact. The following case study effectively highlights the impact of cultural competency.

For my cultural competence paper, I attended a Narcotics Anonymous (NA) meeting. The meeting was held at the First United Methodist Church in Mechanicsburg on Wednesday, February 15th at 7:30 p.m. and lasted about one hour. Prior to attending the meeting, I was incredibly nervous and I did not know what to expect. The purpose of the assignment was meant for us to step out of our comfort zone and explore something that we have never done before and I thought that attending the meeting would be a perfect fit. I have never attended a NA meeting prior to this assignment nor did I have a specific reason to.

Cultural competency is becoming essential in American healthcare with the increasing and diversification of immigration. The Department of Homeland Security, 2014 statistics indicates over 750,000 immigrants received naturalization in the US. These naturalized citizens represent over 20 countries varying from Hispanic, Indian, Asian, African, and Middle Eastern cultures. A change in the way American healthcare treats these cultures is necessitated to provide efficient care and achieve positive outcomes. Douglas et al. (2014) guidelines are to empower patients to help diminish the inequities of their own healthcare. The guidelines for culturally competent care are meant to guide the nurse, nurse educators, and nurse managers in their competent treatment of persons of other cultures. These guidelines mandate a nurse use education, self-assessment and reflection, and diversification of the workforce to meet the demands. The ten guidelines are knowledge of culture, education and training in culturally competent care, critical reflection, cross-cultural communication, culturally competent practice, cultural competence in health care systems and organizations, patient advocacy and empowerment, multicultural workforce, cross-cultural leadership, and evidence-based practice and research.

I just had a conversation with Dr. Mark Gooden over in the college of education. Dr. Gooden is the person I reached out to regarding the cultural competency training for the updates. I will talk to Mike and Alexandra about what I learned. I think it will be a good addition to the week, but I need to try to make it work with the schedule – he needs a minimum of about three hours, but I think we can fit it in. Dr. Gooden’s research is actually in this area and he does this training across the state and nationally for school districts, principals, and other businesses. He’s willing to do it as part of his “service to UT” but he did ask if, in lieu of a payment he would typically charge for this kind of training, if we would be willing

The EYLF proposes that cultural competency cannot be mastered but is something educators continually strive for; by respecting, understanding, engaging with and positively acknowledging and teaching cultural diversity within the childcare industry.

I would have to rate our school between cultural precompetence and cultural competence depending on the year in question and even the time of year. We are aware that we have achievement gaps in our minority populations, particularly our African American and special education students. When test scores come back and we see the lack of progress for these special groups, we have meetings and provided professional development on differentiation and small group instruction. Only one year did I participate in a professional development where an expert on teaching African American led the discussion. Usually staff development sessions are more generalized.

Continual growing access to healthcare expands the diversity of patients seeking treatment. Physicians need to be respectful and culturally aware of each individual in order to provide a high quality of care for every single patient.

It is important to first define cultural competency, as the ability for health professionals to work in situations where their personal culture may not be identical to that of the patient they are interacting with (Blackburn, 2015). Unfortunately, there is no definitive definition utilized across professions (Suarez-Balcazar et al., 2011). This can make it difficult to pursue in both teaching it and evaluating it. In fact, this study will only touch on one method of evaluating cultural competence with three subscores: awareness, organization, and skills (Suarez-Balcazar et al., 2011). This is not the only way to interpret and evaluate the particular realm of competence however, as there was yet another method of evaluation using five subsets: awareness/sensitivity, behaviors, patient-centered communication, practice orientation, and self-assessment (Schwarze, Witte, Sellers, Luzadis, Weiner, Domingo-Snyder, & Page Jr., 2015). This poses a solution to the lack of cultural competency and awareness; however the discord between methods of evaluation can also pose a problem with consistency.

I would use my culture competence skills to assist in being effective with working Andre and other clients as well because this is a set of skills, values and principles that professional must acknowledge while working or interacting with different culture groups and ethnic groups. Having knowledge about the different populations that you may come into contact with will help you efficiently and respectfully interact with clients from diverse backgrounds.

Individuals who identify themselves as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender experience obstacles within the healthcare system. LGBT individuals who encountered negative experiences in the past such as homophobia and stigmatization from others result decrease access to care and unwillingness to disclose their sexual or gender identity. Khalili, Leung, and Diamant (2015) stated in 2007, physicians’ survey results indicated that they were often and sometimes uncomfortable in providing services to LGBT patients. The presence of discrimination behavior means that there is a lack of LGBT-competency within the healthcare system. To decrease discrimination within the healthcare system, it is important for physicians to be competent in order to provide high quality care for LGBT individuals. LGBT-competency training will increase awareness, healthcare knowledge, and will improve communication skills. In addition, LGBT- competency training will also improve physician-patient interactions and will improve patients’ outcome and

According to Sandau-Beckler (2001), the ability to evaluate relatives is of the utmost importance in “family centered services” (p. 93). Fong (2001) maintained that in the past family centered services evaluations were simplistic. Therefore, she recommended extensive modifications to become consistent with the increasingly diverse population in American. Moreover, she highlighted that “culturally competent assessments” should mirror the morals and assets in combination with obstacles of the customer’s background. She defines cultural competence as a practitioner’s capability to concurrently evaluate issues utilizing myriad approaches and proposing ethnically appropriate solutions to the customer.

Although it is imperative as a professional healer to extend warmth and empathy towards all patients, it is unrealistic to believe that cultural misunderstandings, prejudice, conflicting values, etc. will not galvanize tense interactions in the midst of working in a healthcare setting. While this may be a daunting reality, cultural competence is an obtainable characteristic that every professional within this field should continuously strive for through their treatment of all patients, at all times, and in every imaginable setting.