Personal Narrative: Core Competency: Communication

Adapting to different cultural beliefs and practices requires flexibility and a respect for others view points. Cultural competence means to really listen to the patient, to find out and learn about the patient's beliefs of health and illness. To provide culturally appropriate care we need to know and to understand culturally influenced health behaviors. However, becoming culturally competent is a much more daunting task. Culture (and ethnicity) often influences a patient’s perceptions of health and illness. Therefore, if healthcare providers appear insensitive to cultural diversity, their actions may negatively affect the quality of the healthcare that they provide.

As a health care professional, we are faced with caring for patients of different cultural and ethnic background. Researching and learning about the patient’s culture values, beliefs and practices is essential and remarks the ability to provide quality health care for the patient. “Organizations and individuals who understand their clients’ cultural values, beliefs, and practices are in a better position to be coparticipants with their clients in providing culturally acceptable care” (Purnell & Paulanka, 2008, p. 2). After completing the cultural competence checklist, I was able to identify some of my responses to the patient cultural values and belief practices. I will describe a summary of my assessment results, analyze

Culture and values are standards that influence and shape human behaviors, decision making processes, personal relationships, and status of health and happiness. The United States has become a symbol of a multicultural society representing many different ethnicities and minority groups. As our culture continues to grow rapidly so is the necessity to increase awareness, understanding, and tolerance of these diverse groups. As health care providers we must understand the basic needs of our patients,

Cultural competency is an important factor when working with patients in health care, however to be culturally competent, is to understand and communicate with your patient to feel cared for and understand that you’re there to help and not judge. Utilizing Cultural competency to your advantage to promote better results with patients that include, participation, learning, and higher attendance.

Respect, effective communication, empathy, and morality are the cornerstones of cultural competency. Healthcare professionals are advocates for patients and learning the beliefs, behaviors, and being sensitive to other’s way of life is critical in patient care. Obstacles for culturally competent care include xenophobia, prejudice, bigotry, stereotyping, as well as an aversion or misunderstanding of western medicine within the US healthcare system due to an unfamiliarity or a lack of knowledge of practices. It is imperative that one puts their own judgements and assumptions aside, a positive rapport is built, and effective communication is always achieved when caring for patients to ensure the best possible care is given. It is a healthcare

Culture is the way people view their world. Through culture, beliefs are born. What a person believes is directly associated with their behavior. Broome, (2006) states "cultural sensitivity can be defined in the broadest sense to be an awareness and utilization of knowledge related to ethnicity, culture, gender, or sexual orientation in explaining and understanding situations and responses of individuals in their environment.” While assessment tools aid in diagnosis and treatment, to be effective, cultural sensitivity is an inclusion of the client-centered approach enveloped in the assessment instrument. Using a cultural lens in client assessment

My current job is an ABA therapist for the school district. Last week, one of the children on my case load was having a lot of behavior issues in the classroom. In order to help shape his behaviors, a collaboration took place. The classroom teacher, the lead therapist, the autism specialist, another line therapist and myself brainstormed possible strategies to put in place. We all had to observe the behaviors and try to determine the antecedent. From there, we sat down as a team to decide what behaviors we wanted to target first and what strategies we would use. We have all begun to put the strategies into place and we are seeing significant improvement in some of the behaviors. We have all taken turns in dealing

Cultural sensitivity and awareness is a very important aspect of modern healthcare. It works well if staff members are aware of another cultural viewpoint and able to integrate it while providing care (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014). Nursing staff, in particular, spend more time with patients than any other provider in the health care system. Therefore, they should pay close attention when attending to patients born in different countries, raised in in different cultures or patients whose views are distinctly different from the caregiver’s perspective.

Watching elderly residents who could not speak English in distress, when they could not convey their ideas to the English speaking staff, was quite memorable for me as it made me realize that it took away from them, their right to be nurtured, and understood and the

Cultural competence is an important aspect of health care, in order to be a fully rounded health care provider it is necessary to understand what others believe and where they come from. The Merriam Dictionary 2016 defines Culture as “The customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group.” Culture is so important to recognize because it can help healthcare providers better understand their patients. Madeleine Leininger a nursing theorist understood the importance of culture and promoted The theory of culture care, according to Nurseslabs (2016) “Culture Care Theory involves knowing and understanding different cultures with respect to nursing and health-illness caring practices, beliefs and values with the goal to provide meaningful and efficacious nursing care services to people according to their cultural values and health-illness context.” (para 1)

Culture diversity includes gender, faith, sexual orientation, profession, age, socioeconomic status, disability, ethnicity and race. As a future health care provider as an occupational therapy assistant, I will have to understand and apply the value of cultural sensitivity that will allow me to understand and work with individuals from varieties of cultures other than my own. Being able to accept the cultural differences and the ability to adapt is an important skill to inherit to develop a strong relationship with your patients and maximizes the quality of care for your patients. Majority of the patients that comes for therapy are either lower class or middle class working individuals who got hurt during work. Coming from a lower class and middle class family, I understand how important their job is for them to support their family. It motivates me to provide them the best therapy that I can possibly offer in order for them to recover and get back to work as soon as possible. By understanding and knowing the value of each culture, it will benefit and assist us to provide quality care for our patients and at the same time being respectful and appreciative of cultural diversity in the

Although since the start of the course I have made alot of improvement with communication, one of the things that I still struggle with is being nervous. This is extremely frustrating for me because it seems like no matter how much I try not to overthink, and approach a situation with confidence my nerves get the best of me and I start to become embarrassed and frustrated with my inability to effectively articulate myself in social situations.

Nowadays, nurses not only need to know how to care of their patients, but they also must be able to care of patients from other cultures with many beliefs and values. Cultural views of individual influence the patient’s perception and decision of health and health care (Creasia & Parker, 2007). In order to care for people across different languages and cultures, nurses need to develop cultural sensitivity, knowledge, and skills.

The sounds of sixteen children screaming and laughing. Paper money flying, the teacher making no effort to stop the commotion. Everyone smiling having a great time. Many teachers go by curriculum, but only a few take the curriculum to new places. Although some teachers have strict rules, my third grade teacher, Mrs. Rifenbark, was fun and creative, and she taught be many things that I would use for school years to come.

I have demonstrated my strong communication skills, both written and verbal, throughout my career. Currently working with USAID/LPA, it is my responsibility to reach out to “Internal Communication Point of Contact” and update their information in the database. I have done some research about how to establish a good communication between missions, regional, and Washington D.C. and proposed an integrated plan to the Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator, and Internal Communication Director at Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs. In my previous role i regularly liaised with different stakeholders to construct a meaningful project, and built a strong relationship with them. I also prepared and developed various training manuals, as well as