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Cultural Competency Essay

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The importance of cultural diversity in healthcare settings is growing for nurses and other medical personnel. In the literature, cultural competence and cultural humility are sometimes used interchangeably, yet they have unique meanings and implications for healthcare practitioners. In the 1980s, cultural competency evolved in healthcare as a response to the need to address cultural diversity and its impact on healthcare delivery. Nevertheless, the term originates in the far older intercultural communication and understanding of the subject. One of the oldest allusions to the concept of cultural competency may be traced back to the 1959 publication of Edward T. Hall's seminal work, "The Silent Language." In this book, Hall emphasizes the …show more content…

This necessitates attentive listening, the acceptance of prejudices, and the appreciation of cultural differences (Purnell, 2005). Many studies have emphasized the importance of cultural competence in improving healthcare outcomes for various groups, such as reducing health disparities and increasing patient satisfaction and the credibility of healthcare practitioners (Brach & Fraser, 2000; Betancourt et al., 2003; Beach et al., 2005; Thom et al., 2006). According to a study of community health center healthcare practitioners, those with higher levels of cultural competency were more likely to provide patient-centered care and have better patient outcomes (Sawrikar & Katz, 2014). Similarly, a systematic review emphasizes the importance of cultural competency in healthcare, arguing that in order to provide effective and equitable care, healthcare personnel must understand and respond to their patients' cultural, linguistic, and social demands (Dreachslin et al., 2012). Furthermore, Lie et al. (2011) discovered that, while cultural competence training is an important component of healthcare education and practice, more high-quality research is needed to fully understand the …show more content…

Cultural competemility is defined as the synergistic process between cultural humility and cultural competence, in which cultural humility permeates each of the five components of cultural competence: cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, cultural skill, cultural desire, and cultural encounters (Campinha-Bacote, 2018). This perspective implies that cultural competemility can be viewed as both a becoming and a being process. Individuals must simultaneously engage in the processes of acquiring cultural competency and cultural

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Humans are complex and diverse beings that belong to different cultures, speak different languages, and have different perspectives on the world they live in. When cultures collide, it can be difficult to empathize and respect the differences that exist. Cultural sensitivity is, “The ability to be appropriately responsive to the attitudes, feelings, or circumstances of groups of people that share a common and distinctive racial, national, religious, linguistic or cultural heritage” (Arnold & Boggs, 2016, p. 119). Cultural sensitivity and effective communication, especially in the health care setting, are essential to bridging cultures and creating a common understanding.

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Cultural competency can be described as the ability to interact with different cultures in a positive manner. Many cultural differences can become apparent in a number of situations. According to Fadiman, doctors have a moral duty to save lives even if they don’t agree with the values or beliefs of someone else’s culture (1997). This paper will address the topic of cultural competency, with a concentration on the importance of cultural competency in the medical field. It is hard to imagine how frustrating it may be to come across a patient that resists a professional’s opinion because they have solid beliefs or do not understand what doctors are attempting to convey.

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Examine how public health organizations and health care providers encourage their employees to gain “cultural competence” beyond being bilingual. First they need to enhance their employee’s self-awareness of attitudes they might have towards different racial and ethnic groups. Second they can improve the care that they give by simply increasing their knowledge about different cultural beliefs and practices. How those groups typical seek health care and the attitudes they have toward health care.

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Medical providers that have cultural competency will overall enhance the quality of care to a diverse group of patients. Having that cultural knowledge would help the medical provider make the patient feel comfortable ultimately increasing the chance for that patient to follow through or adhere to the medical provider's treatment plan. It would also allow the medical provider to help build a friendly nurturing relationship with all of his or her patients. Developing these friendly relationships with patients will help make the patient worry less about a difficult diagnosis and would give them hope that they could one day get better from it. When a medical provider is culturally competent they would know how to respond to certain medical scenarios

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The purpose of the book is “to sensitize providers and those learning to be providers to the complex issues involved in cross-cultural service delivery” (Pg. 3). Furthermore, the author writes the goal of Cultural Diversity: A Primer for the Human Service is to train culturally competent human service providers (Pg. 2). In chapter two, “What It Means to Be Culturally Competent,” we learn about the importance of being culturally competent. Cultural competence is the ability to provide effective services cross-culturally (Diller, 2015, Pg. 17).

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If nurses lack of understanding regarding community demographics and cultural differences, they can have unintentional bias, and stereotype patients due to a lack of awareness of the cultural demographics of the community they serve (Camphinha-Bacote, 2011). Cultural competence is the understanding of different cultures and how that impacts the provision of patient care. Cultural competence in nursing is defined as one willingness or the desire to understand a patient’s culture, the ability to learn about a defined cultures belief system, and to work effectively as a healthcare provider understanding the dynamics of the patient’s culture as it relates to their relationships and care (Kardong-Edgren et Al.,

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Cultural Competency Simply put, the United States is a diverse country. It is common knowledge that this a country founded upon immigration. Moreover, with the advancements in transportation and the growing trends toward globalization this course is more than likely to continue – barring any radical governmental intervention. That is why cultural competency is so vital, especially when it comes to healthcare. Because the sad fact is, not all ethnic groups receive the same level of care (Kittler, Sucher & Nelms, 2017).

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Perhaps the best first step, and simplest, in response to the lack of cultural competency is for physicians in health care settings to place greater emphasis on cultural sensitivity and awareness trainings to improve treatment for Hispanics. The emphasis on this solution is an important starting point that will help increase the effectiveness of future initiatives in health care. Emphasis on cultural sensitivity and awareness is most efficacious in resolving cultural competency because the solution is both practical and simple. By providing training programs within health care settings that specifically focus on cultural sensitivity and awareness, physicians will learn to respond effectively to their Hispanic patients’ needs that show knowledge of their cultural differences. “One-size-fits all” types of prevention and treatment models cannot be applied to Hispanic patients and expect beneficial outcomes, thus “the challenge is for physicians to move beyond their belief systems and values and expand their world views to validate how others function”

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After taking the self-assessment survey for quality and culture, I would like to improve and understand how cultural competence can have a real impact on clinical outcomes. Taking from some of the questions I answered wrong, it make me wants to be cultural competent. There are a few questions I am surprised and shocked, that I answered them incorrectly. I do understand that with training, I will start to gain cultural competence but it will take consistent individual practice on my part to develop and maintain individual cultural competence. Cultural competence can lead to, health literacy, health equity, and fewer diagnostic errors, which might help the patient expand their choices and access high quality medical providers because patient

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The world is a diverse population, with people coming from various ethnic and cultural backgrounds. A person’s views, values, and traditions determine their daily needs and practices. So, healthcare providers face certain challenges and restrictions because a patient’s belief may inhibit professionals from providing the most effective care. Therefore, cultural competence is an important idea for healthcare providers to consider when understanding and respecting patients. Balcazar, Suarez-Balcazar, and Taylor-Ritzler (2009) noted in “Cultural competence:

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Cultural competency: Indians Culture competency is defined as one has the knowledge, the abilities and the skill to deliver care congruent with the patient’s cultural beliefs and practices (Purnell, 2013). As a nurse or a health care provider, increasing ones consciousness of culture diversity improves the possibilities for health care practitioners to provide competent care (Purnell, 2013). Nurses and all health care providers should be aware of other cultures to provide the best care that they can for that individual. Developing a relationship with diverse cultural groups involves good interpersonal skills and the application of knowledge and techniques learned from the physical, biological, and social sciences as well as the humanities (Purnell, 2013). I am choosing to select the Indian culture for my first assignment.

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Over the past four months, this course has been one of the most eye-opening experiences I have had during my first year of college. Although I have always realized the importance of being culturally competent in daily life, specifically healthcare, I was unaware of the many ways that cultural competence can be obtained. This class gave me the opportunity to view situations from a different perspective, especially through the weekly discussion boards and peer responses. Learning from classmate can teach more valuable lessons than listening to boring lectures or reading hundreds of pages in a textbook because it is easier to relate to experience rather than hypothetical situations. For example, one of the discussion boards asked us to detail

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The way a person thinks about health, “whether that is our ‘philosophy’, our ‘worldview’, our ‘framework’ influences what we do as individuals in practice,” as well as how we deliver the health service. These elements allow us to think about healthcare in our own culturally acceptable way, this isn’t always an acceptable way of delivering the service to people with views different to our own. Cultural competence is an approach that aids in influencing the service and the education of healthcare professionals. (Taylor, K., & Guerin, P., 2010). Cultural competence is defined as a knowledge and understanding of cultures, histories and contemporary realities and awareness of protocols, combined with the proficiency to engage and work effectively in a cultural context congruent to the expectations of the people of that culture.

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