Cultural competency has increasingly been recognized as an important part of healthcare. Cultural competency is more than being ‘politically correct.’ It is an important part of ensuring that care is effective. Healthcare advice cannot be disseminated in a cookie-cutter fashion but rather must be conveyed in a way so that patients understand care instructions and genuinely understand the need to fulfill them. With this in mind, diversity awareness and education must be integrated into the education of all healthcare professionals from bottomof their careers. “A consistent body of research indicates a lack of culturally competent care directly contributes to poor patient outcomes, reduced patient compliance, and increased health disparities,
All Organisations posses a distinct form of culture with some having more than a single culture. This culture is usually very difficult to measure, change and most especially change.
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.
The progress I have made on building cultural competence is I met this guy while I was at work, and he was telling about how his insurance won’t be able to cover for his visit to campus health. I suggested to him that maybe he change health care providers to someone who can possibly help cover more things than the one he has now. Also in one of my public health classes one of my teachers is having a luncheon with people who have HIV and I know if I go to the event I can get a better insight on what they are dealing with and find out ways to help them, since the luncheon is ran by an organization that helps people who live with HIV, or I could just give them support
In this great nation we live in today that has been vastly increasing diversity bring so many great opportunities. But with these great opportunities there are also challenges that are continually looked over constantly. One of the challenges is our health care system that fails to deliver culturally competent services. Cultural competency helps to enable providers to deliver services that are respectful to diverse patients. This helps with patients own health beliefs, practices and cultural and linguistic needs. This is why this training is needed in every health facility. Many doctors go through this problem not understanding their patient’s needs. If I were a doctor I would use this skill. Certain racial and ethnic minorities receive poorer
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.
Competency is something education and care services and educators strive for constantly. It is what a service must demonstrate to prove it is meeting or exceeding the National Quality Standard. But there is a special type of competency that all services must achieve to deliver high quality education and care to all children—cultural competency. Cultural competence is an essential practice of both the Early Years Learning Framework and the Framework for School Aged Care—My Time, Our Place. It is based on the principle contained in both frameworks—respect for diversity. Can educators and services ever truly become culturally competent? Many would say that achievement of this competency is always just beyond grasp. That is why the
Cultural competent? What is the big deal? “The term cultural competence is used to describe a set of skills, values and principles that acknowledge, respect and work towards optimal interactions between the individual and the various cultural and ethnic groups that an individual might come in contact with” (HumanServicesEDU, para. 1). Being able to understand and effectively understand other cultures than your own, can make a huge difference in the patient’s treatment and how well the case manager can do his or her job.
Life experience coupled with professional experience has enriched the level of cultural competency that I function at daily. Starting my first career in the legal arena, almost twenty years ago, I carried more bias toward certain groups, often thinking in black and white rather than a rich rainbow of grays. Being empathetic to individuals that committed crimes against society and others was rarely accepted in my naïve viewpoint. After my first year of working with criminal clients, I began to understand that one simple act cannot define or give explanation to the beauty of multiple stories that fill the chapters in an individual’s life. I learned that I could not fully understand what led to the story that was playing out before me without
Another outstanding point that you made in reference to applying cultural competence in your personal life is phenomenal. I believe getting to know who we are will help us pinpoint the areas that are not the strongest when providing cultural care to patients. Allowing us to work on our weaknesses and become proficient in the areas we lack. In order for us to become an expert in cultural competency and cultural care we need to apply it in every aspect of our lives.
Providing culturally competence are available constructs in augmentation of patient centered healthcare delivery that has been heavily emphasized in recent years. In particular to this writer’s professional career there have been ongoing improvements seen on a corporate and care level made to the implementation in providing culturally competent care. In this paper, we explore culturally competent and patient centered care with the Mexican female population here in the northeast. In doing so, the demonstration of timely theoretical frameworks of cultural competence must be afforded to our patients; to improve interactions in an interpersonal level. This group was recognized primarily due to identifying the integral role the female plays
Cultural competency is an essential skill for family physicians because of increasing ethnic diversity among patient populations. Culture, the shared beliefs and attitudes of a group, shapes ideas of what constitutes illness and acceptable treatment. A cross-cultural interview should elicit the patient’s perception of the illness and any alternative therapies he or she is undergoing as well as facilitate a mutually acceptable treatment plan. Patients should understand instructions from their physicians and be able to repeat them in their own words. To protect the patient’s confidentiality, it is best to avoid using the patient’s family and friends as interpreters. Potential cultural conflicts between a physician and patient include differing
Exposure to a variety of cultures and having an understanding of those cultures as a PA is highly beneficial for several reasons. Having this knowledge would enhance a PA’s cultural competency by broadening their perspective, making the PA more acutely aware of symptoms pertaining to cultural attributes, and improving their critical thinking skills, communication skills, and sensitivity. Exposure to various cultures provides greater insight into the perspectives of the individuals of those cultures. This insight contributes to understanding of individuals, and therefore, opposes judgment and promotes productivity. Furthermore, this understanding of individuals’ cultures can help PA’s to be sensitive and sympathetic when considering a patient
Cultures are varying among different parts of the globe. People with different cultures have different characteristics and viewpoints on the subjects due to diverse understanding and method of learning. During the past few decades, the international trade grows in a very rapid rate due to the advantages that it provides; “increased sales, operational efficiencies, exposure to new technologies and broader consumer choices” (Heslin). Therefore, when considering the culture aspect to current business world, it is crucial for business to understand the culture aspect because of the tremendous growth of international business as well as utilize the international market to its maximum
The organization culture as a leadership concept has been identified as one of the many components that leaders can use to grow a dynamic organization. Leadership in organizations starts the culture formation process by imposing their assumptions and expectations on their followers. Once culture is established and accepted, they become a strong leadership tool to communicate the leader 's beliefs and values to organizational members, and especially new comers. When leaders promote ethical culture, they become successful in maintaining organizational growth, the good services demanded by the society, the ability to address problems before they become disasters and consequently are competitive against rivals. The leader 's success will depend to a large extent, on his knowledge and understanding of the organizational culture. The leader who understands his organizational culture and takes it seriously is capable of predicting the outcome of his decisions in preventing any anticipated consequences. What then is organizational culture? The concept of organizational culture has been defined from many perspectives in the literature. There is no one single definition for organizational culture. The topic of organizational culture has been studied from many perspectives and disciplines, such as anthropology, sociology, organizational behavior, and organizational leadership to name a few. Deal defines organizational culture as values,