Cultural Competency
Educational Setting and Topic
Cultural competency ensures the best use of healthcare processes by selecting employees who are capable of providing the best healthcare services for their patient population pool. Its perspectives focus on nurses who have the capacities to deal with patients from various ethnic backgrounds. In most cases, the cultural competence entails the art of possessing self-awareness that mainly emanates from the self-exploration and communication with varying cultures and ethnicities (Hensel, 2014).
Studies have revealed that by the year 2050, all the non-whites and the whites will be equally treated on the bases of equality issues. The nurses are required to improve their knowledge by returning for baccalaureate degrees so that they can develop the skills of dealing with various individuals from different cultural backgrounds (Andrews, 2005). Contrary, most healthcare educators admit that cultural competence teaches individuals the skills beyond race and ethnicity.
Cultural competence includes issues that pertain to gender, class, religion, sexual orientation issues as well as disability issues. Therefore, there is a need to ensure that the health care workers develop the skills of becoming culturally competent in order to be able to deal with the unwavering changes that occur among the cultural perspectives (Beck, Scheel, De Oliveira & Hopp, 2013).
Successful training on cultural competence is a key factor in addressing health care issues in the current diversified populations. Cultural competence initiatives that are usually introduced by the educators are expected to have long-lasting impacts on the health care providers.
Cultural education ensures that healthcare workers are able to impart optimal healthcare services to their culturally diverse populations of patients. Legal mandates state that the aspect of cultural competence should be incorporated into the healthcare curricular. This will ensure that every medical student will grab the capacity to be able to provide the optimal services to patients of various healthcare backgrounds. With this education, healthcare providers will be able to demonstrate cultural sensitivity (Haas, Seckman & Rea, 2010).
However, this concept of introducing cultural competency training in medical education has been in existence since time immemorial. With the advent of rigorous and comprehensive approaches proposed, the aspect of cultural competency should be implemented in nursing curricula. Cultural competency has been found as one of the only ways that can be used to address the issue of healthcare disparities among different cultures and ethnicities. Although efforts have been made to ensure that the issue of cultural competence is uniformly addressed in medical education, there are challenges that are still preventing the complete implementation of the approach into the medical institutions.
Educational Framework
There are bulks of publications that talk about the utilization of cultural competence and how it affects the delivery of care in various healthcare organizations and institutions. However, there are several challenges that the initiatives meet on its process of implementation. One of the biggest concerns that healthcare workers face is diversified populations that have mixed-up cultures and backgrounds. The rising rates of immigrations into various destinations all over the world prompts the inclusion of cultural competency knowledge into medical curricular (Beck, Scheel, De Oliveira & Hopp, 2013).
Through cultural competence, the healthcare providers are required to exhibit a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes as well as policies that enable the system, agencies as well as the healthcare providers to be able to address the cross-cultural issues. The cultural competencies in healthcare institutions allow healthcare providers to be able to articulate issues that come from various ethnic, racial, and cultural backgrounds (Allen, Smart, Odom-Maryon & Swain, 2013).
Methods of service learning tend to agree that culture does not only entail the race/ethnicity and beliefs but also rather encompass the age, gender, the socioeconomic factors, religion, sexual orientation, disability issues as well as the educational levels. Some studies indicate how some students do not maintain the progress of becoming culturally competent. Students take time to know the cultural issues, values, and competencies (Chouhan, 2005). On the other hand, it is also important to note that the time that educators and students employ determine the success that is achieved.
Various studies that tend to address the issue of cultural competence among students reveal that very few people have knowledge of second languages as well as other cultures and values. It is important to ensure that the students are able to incorporate all the necessary requirements for demonstrating the cultural competence issue. Most of the medical students require longer time in order to be able to learn other aspects of other cultures.
Through the integration of the cultural competency training in first-year physician courses, students should able to acquire the necessary diversified knowledge of different cultures. This allows individuals to be able to extend understanding, communicate, and deliver comprehensive healthcare services to patients from different cultural backgrounds. Most of the physicians who are aware of various cultural practices and all that is required of them, tend to give successful care for the patients.
References
Allen, C. B., Smart, D. A., Odom-Maryon, T., & Swain, D. (2013). The Value of Community-Focused Interprofessional Care in Peru for Developing Cultural Competency in Health Professions Students. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship, 10(1), 1. Web.
Andrews, G. (2005). Cultural and Political Organizations in Latin America. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Web.
Beck, B., Scheel, M., De Oliveira, K., & Hopp, J. (2013). Integrating cultural competency throughout a first-year physician assistant curriculum steadily improves cultural awareness. The Journal Of Physician Assistant Education: The Official Journal Of The Physician Assistant Education Association, 24(2), 28-31.
Chouhan, K. (2005). Multiculturalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Web.
Haas, B. B., Seckman, C. C., & Rea, G. G. (2010). Incorporating Cultural Diversity and Caring Through Simulation in a Baccalaureate Nursing Program. International Journal for Human Caring, 14(2), 50-51.
Hensel, D. (2014). Typologies of Professional Identity among Graduating Baccalaureate-Prepared Nurses. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 46(2), 125-133. Web.