In the recent years, the culture concept has attracted the attention of policy makers and health care providers. The multicultural and diverse societies are inspiring the providers of health care for striving to develop the cultural competence and cultural humility. Cultural competence is considered as a set of similar attitudes, policies and behaviors that work together in a system, organization, and agency or among the professionals, which enables to perform work effectively in the cross-cultural situations. It is an active participation, engagement and commitment in a long-term process that people enter into a continuing basis with the patients, colleagues, communities and themselves (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998).
The objective of cultural competency is to make the physicians ready to provide the quality and eminent care to the diverse people or populations. However, the need for cultural competency arrived from the intention of giving quality treatment and care to the marginalized people and immigrants with the hope of decreasing the disparities in the health care quality. The service and health care providers and the agencies of government are emphasizing on the development of cultural competence as a method to address the health disparities and a way for the creation of health equity (The State Plan Advisory Work Group, 2011).
The approach that is considered as better in this regard is to learn about the cultures, their characteristics and examine the communities and marginally attached groups. Furthermore, several cultural competence programs are intended for sensitizing the health care providers to special vulnerabilities, needs and requirements of different people with the mission of providing appropriate and accessible services and care to all (Chang, Bakken, Brown, Houston, Kreps, Kukafka, Safran & Satvri, 2004). They focus mainly on the underserved group of population such as the ethnic minorities that are badly affected by the health disparities. Cultural humility is a continuous and lifelong process of the self critique and self reflection (Schiff & Reith, 2012).
The concept of the cultural humility does not require the lists of peculiar and different behaviors and beliefs that pertain to a particular patient’s group; instead the provider is motivated and encouraged for developing a reverential partnership and relation with every patient. The provider can do this by conducting focused interviews and exploring differences and similarities between his own and priorities of patient. The goal of process of cultural humility can be more appropriate and suitable for the physicians who aspire to deliver quality care to the patients of every culture, and they show another and actual face of the patient-centered treatment and care.
The beginning point of this approach of cultural humility is not the examination of belief system of client rather the health care and service providers emphasize deeply on their beliefs and assumptions that are entrenched in their own goals and understandings of theor meeting and encountering with the client. While practicing the cultural humility approach, instead of learnig to respond and identify the set of specific cultural traits the provider that is culturally competent practices and develop a self awareness process.
In nut shell, developing skills, knowledge culturally and understanding various cross cultural interactions, acceptance and awareness of the wide variety of populations are all the components of the cultural competence. While, continuous process of self reflection that improves care is included in the cultural humility. A better approach is to focus on the issues that arise in a case of particular patient because of the differences in cultural values and how they may exert their influence on the patient care.
References
Tervalon, Melanie., Nurray-Garcia, Jann. (1998). Cultural Humility versus Cultural Competence: A Critical Distinction in Defining Physical Training Outcomes in Multicultural Education. Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, 9(2), 117-125
The State Plan Advisory Work Group. (2011). Plan to Address Health Disparities andPromote Health Equity in New Hampshire. New Hampshire Health and Equity Partnership. Retrieved from:
http://www.dhhs.state.nh.us/omh/documents/disparities.pdf
Chang, Betty L., Baken, Suzanne., Brown, S. Scott., Houston, Thomas K., Kreps, Gary L., Kukafka, Rita., Safran, Charles., Stavr,, P. Zoe. (2004). Bridging the Digital Divide: Reaching Vulnerable Populations. Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 11(6), 448–457
Schiff, Teresa., & Rieth, Katherine. (2012). Projects in Medical Education: “Social Justice In Medicine” A Rationale for an Elective Program as Part of the Medical Education Curriculum at John A. Burns School of Medicine. Hawaii Journal of Medicine and Public Health, 71(4). 64–67
