Cultural Competency Resources

Defining Cross Cultural Work

Cross-Cultural Issues in Medicine: Student Views

Three Approaches for Practicing Cross-Cultural Work

References and Readings

Why Develop Cultural Competency Skills?

As you continue to develop your clinical interviewing skills you should begin exploring your patients' cultural backgrounds. Cultural Factors significantly impact:

Communication style and exchange of information

Patient - clinician interactions

Health care practices and health care outcomes (i.e. adherence to prescribed medical regimens)

Every encounter in family medicine is a cross-cultural encounter. Neher and Borkan assert that "cross cultural medicine is important to family medicine not because it is exotic, but because it is an extension of the basic principles of family medicine. The tacit recognition of the patient's unique but culturally derived knowledge, beliefs, and practices surrounding a particular illness is an integral part of the doctor-patient relationship.

The physician who ignores that fact imperils the health of his patients and the future of his practice. Unfortunately, proponents of cross-cultural medicine have come to us like immigrants to a new country. We have found their ways strange, their language peculiar, and we have left them out on the periphery of the community. We hope that current efforts will be successful and that some of the pitfalls of the past will be overcome" (Neher and Borkan, 1990).