Cultural Competency
![Picture](/uploads/2/0/1/5/20156129/1368546829.png)
“Culture is a universal experience; it defines how health is perceived,
how health care information is received, what is considered to be a health
problem, who should provide treatment and how and what kind of treatment should
be given” (Berman, Erb, Kozier, Snyder, 2008. p.312).
"Cultural competency is the ability to consider cultural factors in the prevention and treatment of disease, includes the cultural influences on caregivers and patients" (Joralemon, 2010, p 137). One major problem with culture is that it is confused with ethnicity and is therefore treated as a characteristic of the patient. "Applied medical anthropologist struggle to remind health care workers that culture is not a coterminous with ethnicity that the shared patterns of thought and behavior that define culture are also characteristics of groups distinguished by gender, age, religion, occupation, and others" (Joralemon, 2010, p 97). Applied medical anthropologist worked on cultural competency in a variety if ways:
"Cultural competency is the ability to consider cultural factors in the prevention and treatment of disease, includes the cultural influences on caregivers and patients" (Joralemon, 2010, p 137). One major problem with culture is that it is confused with ethnicity and is therefore treated as a characteristic of the patient. "Applied medical anthropologist struggle to remind health care workers that culture is not a coterminous with ethnicity that the shared patterns of thought and behavior that define culture are also characteristics of groups distinguished by gender, age, religion, occupation, and others" (Joralemon, 2010, p 97). Applied medical anthropologist worked on cultural competency in a variety if ways:
- "Elisa J. Sobo and her colleagues worked on a measure of "Functional biomedical acculturation" to assess how much of the culture of bio-medicine is familiar to families.
- Ruthbeth Finerman and her colleague used standard anthropological interviewing techniques to explore the challenges and frustrations of those who are employed as medical interpreters for Latino patients" (Joralemon, 2010, p.97). What was found in this situation was conflict between medical staff and how they see the interpreters more and how the interpreters view themselves and their role as "cultural brokers.