Cross Cultural Communication
Post a reflection on this statement and support or refute it. Many “culture-specific” training programs use an inventory of cultural characteristics of minority groups to help trainees understand and interact appropriately. Does this technique run the risk of perpetuating stereotypes and offending ethnic groups? Cite an academic resource that supports your position.
I think that this is a great question! I took a religion class and my professor brought up this same question about people learning about religion. By learning more about religion would it make people more frustrated or would it make people accept other people's religion easier. Well, yes and no. Comparing religion and culture-specific training, it really depends how biased you are towards a certain religion or a certain minority. For example, my uncle was a Colonel in the Vietnam War and when he came back to the United States, he had a very hard time trusting or even wanting to be around people of any Asian descent. My uncle never had any prejudice towards Asian people before, but because he constantly had Vietnamese people trying to kill him for about three years it changed something in his brain he said. The more he found out about them, the more he tried to understand, but when you have children or women being suicide bombers by delivering baskets full of explosives to soldiers, that changes your trust and the psyche of a person. That is why when a lot of soldiers come back from war there are a lot of psychological and emotional treatments that have to be done. Even then it is still very hard to get over something as traumatic as war.
Now, if we look at just the cultural differences of people without war, it can be a little bit easier for people to be accepting and less biased towards a minority. An example from me personally comes from when I was working on a military base during the summer in college. I worked with an older Vietnamese woman who would always have the stinkiest food for lunch. I couldn't stand the smell. One lunch hour she said to me "you try?" I said "no thank you." That wasn't good enough for her. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. "You will try this food" she said. I didn't want to, but when I did it was delicious. I couldn't believe that it tasted that good after it smelling so bad. To this day I make sure to try food even if it doesn't look good or smell good, because you never know until you try it. I was biased just because of the smell, but fell in love with the food once i tried it. I ended up receiving a wok from this lady as a present and to this day still make the food she made for me.
So turning our attention to the training programs, do they perpetuate stereotypes or offend ethnic groups? I would have to say no. I think when you learn more about a person, their background and possibly there religion, is gives you a better understanding of how they are as a person, and this can only lead to a better relationship and understanding between patients and staff. When I read the NIH (National Institute of Health) white paper called "Cultural Competency: A Systematic Review of Health Care Provider Educational Interventions," I was happy to hear that a majority of the Providers were more understanding of people once they were able to get to know their patients' culture more. There was good evidence that cultural competence training improves the attitudes and skills of health professionals. 1 This only makes sense versus people becoming frustrating or less accepting. I felt when I read more about Christianity in my religion class, that there were so many other religions that were comparable to my own. It made me have a different perspective on people that had different religions and what they believed in. I also gained more respect for some religions because I became more educated. The same goes for these Providers that underwent this study. They were able to learn more about their patients' culture which led to better understanding of the patient. The evidence showed that cultural competence training impacted patient satisfaction as well. When a patient or person for that matter knows that that you took the time to know more about them, they will be happy because it shows you care and they will want to come back to you. If only more people took the time to do this with their neighbors, co-workers and bosses, it would create a less negative environments and promote positive ones.
In summary, cultural competence training shows promise as a strategy for improving health care professionals’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills and patients’ ratings of care. UW Health has put out training similar to this, but for all staff to take. I think that the more that we surround ourselves with the cultural diversity, the more it forces to try and understand the patient population. The people that create stereotypes and get offended are the lower majority of people.
I recommend reading this white paper.
1. Truong M, Paradies Y, Priest N. Interventions to improve cultural competency in healthcare: A systematic review of reviews. BMC health services research. 2014;14(1):99. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24589335. doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-14-99.
I think that this is a great question! I took a religion class and my professor brought up this same question about people learning about religion. By learning more about religion would it make people more frustrated or would it make people accept other people's religion easier. Well, yes and no. Comparing religion and culture-specific training, it really depends how biased you are towards a certain religion or a certain minority. For example, my uncle was a Colonel in the Vietnam War and when he came back to the United States, he had a very hard time trusting or even wanting to be around people of any Asian descent. My uncle never had any prejudice towards Asian people before, but because he constantly had Vietnamese people trying to kill him for about three years it changed something in his brain he said. The more he found out about them, the more he tried to understand, but when you have children or women being suicide bombers by delivering baskets full of explosives to soldiers, that changes your trust and the psyche of a person. That is why when a lot of soldiers come back from war there are a lot of psychological and emotional treatments that have to be done. Even then it is still very hard to get over something as traumatic as war.
Now, if we look at just the cultural differences of people without war, it can be a little bit easier for people to be accepting and less biased towards a minority. An example from me personally comes from when I was working on a military base during the summer in college. I worked with an older Vietnamese woman who would always have the stinkiest food for lunch. I couldn't stand the smell. One lunch hour she said to me "you try?" I said "no thank you." That wasn't good enough for her. It wasn't a question, it was a statement. "You will try this food" she said. I didn't want to, but when I did it was delicious. I couldn't believe that it tasted that good after it smelling so bad. To this day I make sure to try food even if it doesn't look good or smell good, because you never know until you try it. I was biased just because of the smell, but fell in love with the food once i tried it. I ended up receiving a wok from this lady as a present and to this day still make the food she made for me.
So turning our attention to the training programs, do they perpetuate stereotypes or offend ethnic groups? I would have to say no. I think when you learn more about a person, their background and possibly there religion, is gives you a better understanding of how they are as a person, and this can only lead to a better relationship and understanding between patients and staff. When I read the NIH (National Institute of Health) white paper called "Cultural Competency: A Systematic Review of Health Care Provider Educational Interventions," I was happy to hear that a majority of the Providers were more understanding of people once they were able to get to know their patients' culture more. There was good evidence that cultural competence training improves the attitudes and skills of health professionals. 1 This only makes sense versus people becoming frustrating or less accepting. I felt when I read more about Christianity in my religion class, that there were so many other religions that were comparable to my own. It made me have a different perspective on people that had different religions and what they believed in. I also gained more respect for some religions because I became more educated. The same goes for these Providers that underwent this study. They were able to learn more about their patients' culture which led to better understanding of the patient. The evidence showed that cultural competence training impacted patient satisfaction as well. When a patient or person for that matter knows that that you took the time to know more about them, they will be happy because it shows you care and they will want to come back to you. If only more people took the time to do this with their neighbors, co-workers and bosses, it would create a less negative environments and promote positive ones.
In summary, cultural competence training shows promise as a strategy for improving health care professionals’ knowledge, attitudes, and skills and patients’ ratings of care. UW Health has put out training similar to this, but for all staff to take. I think that the more that we surround ourselves with the cultural diversity, the more it forces to try and understand the patient population. The people that create stereotypes and get offended are the lower majority of people.
I recommend reading this white paper.
1. Truong M, Paradies Y, Priest N. Interventions to improve cultural competency in healthcare: A systematic review of reviews. BMC health services research. 2014;14(1):99. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24589335. doi: 10.1186/1472-6963-14-99.
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