Cultural competency is part of the "art" of medicine, characterized by awareness, sensitivity, respect and understanding of the human differences (i.e. cultures and world views) that patients seeking healthcare may possess.
Cultural competency requires the physician to be aware and knowledgeable about the following facts or issues:
- Illness and disease vary across cultures.
- Beliefs systems and attitudes about health, healing and disease are diverse.
- Cultural attitudes affect patient-doctor relationships.
- All aspects of culture are not uniformly expressed or shared within or across groups.
- Optimal patient care requires that the patient-doctor relationship is a trusting one that defies interpersonal or intercultural differences.
Definitions:
Cultural sensitivity --helping doctors to be achieve the awareness (awareness of commonality, difference, and bias), knowledge (culture theory, as well as development and use of open, expectable patterns in lieu of stereotypic information), and skill (in the areas of communication, assessment and intervention).
Cultural competency--helping doctors to understand and be sensitive to the different needs people from various cultures and backgrounds may have when they seek medical care.
Cultural proficiency--helping doctors translate cultural sensitivity and cultural competency to excellent patient outcomes.
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