Cultural Competency In The United States

Cultural Competency in general is related to the ability to serve people in an appropriate way where they feel respected. In health care this refers to comfortable treatments that meet the standards of the patient from any backgrounds with all their different ways of living. Health care is a very important matter to every culture with different beliefs, traits, linguistics, etc. As Tamu Nolfo, the certified prevention specialist states in the short video “What is cultural competence and why is it important?”, there is still a problem with inequality in the United States. This makes it difficult to connect with such diverse cultures and backgrounds. It is; however, very important to have health care providers with cultural competent manners

It is very dangerous to use cultural blindness and forget that different culture see different manners as acceptable. Every culture comes with different manners. While it is normal to have a stare eye contact, call people by their first name, be open and speaking up, etc. all of the above could be disrespectful in, as an example, Japan. Eye contact is in most Asian countries considered rude, calling someone by their first name is disrespectful, openness and speaking up is the opposite of the Japanese culture and goes against their believes. Those are just small examples of how different cultures can be. With the absence of cultural competency in health care it could for example happen, that a patient from Japan, called Suzuki Yasuo, is seeing a doctor. The doctor is used to American patients and starts their interaction with big eye contact, and a kind but strong hand shake. While shaking his hand he says: “Good afternoon Yasuo!” and continues speaking with a loud voice about the issue that has to be solved on that day. The first-time patient, however, responses in a soft way and is