The Role of Religion in Providing Culturally Responsive Care

Posted by on Sep 23, 2011 in Cultural Health Beliefs + Behaviors | 0 comments  Skillfulness in cross-cultural communication with patients can be demonstrated by a provider’s comfort with asking key questions so that he or she may discover the broader context in which a patient is operating. This broader context includes the patient’s cultural-religious beliefs which have a tremendous impact on health behavior. Our beliefs about what helps restore us to health can...
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Key Determinants of Heritage Consistency in Cross-Cultural Patient Care

Posted by on Jun 13, 2011 in Blog, Cultural Health Beliefs + Behaviors, Special Topics | 0 comments Culturally-responsive providers consistently work to develop awareness of cultural norms, including their own and those of western medical culture. They combine this awareness with an understanding of the dimensions of culture to more easily identify variations in patterns of communication and health beliefs/behaviors of patients. The most responsive providers explore health within the full...
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Health Care for African American Patients/Families

Posted by on May 16, 2011 in African American Culture | 4 comments The following cultural patterns may represent many African Americans, but do not represent all people in a community. Families that have immigrated recently from Africa have very different cultures compared to families that have been in the US for many generations.  Get to know your patient and their families on an individual level. Not all patients from diverse populations conform to commonly...
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Literacy, Health Literacy & Family Culture: One Woman Refugee’s Story of Seeking Health Care In Denver

Posted by on Apr 18, 2011 in Blog, Special Topics | 1 comment   If your American family story is like mine… your ancestors were probably voluntary immigrants to this country, not refugees. My maternal grandfather came over from Poland at the turn of the last century, knowing eight languages, but not one of them English. He was thirteen, alone, with just a note hung around his neck with a destination written on it. In honor of his memory, I wanted...
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Isn’t it confusing? Yes, it isn’t.

Posted by on Mar 29, 2011 in Blog | 2 comments Didn’t I get myself all turned around today? During a presentation to a group of first-year residents (we were talking about phrasing questions to elicit good responses from patients) I tried to give an example of what not to do. I tried to start a sentence with a negative and then show its potential for confusion. Well, I did create an example of confusion. Shouldn’t I now try to...
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Eliciting Quality Patient Responses in Cross-Cultural Care

Posted by on Mar 23, 2011 in Blog, Key Concepts in Cross-Cultural Communications, Non-English Speaking Patients, Patient Compliance, Special Topics, Talking to Patients | 0 comments The cultural worlds created by humans are not controlled by universal laws of science; each culture operates according to its own internal dynamic. Even members of a given culture acquire most of what they know in the process of growing up. Relating to other people isn’t learned the way, for example, disease theory is learned. So culture can’t be distilled into learned facts and doctors...
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