Providing culturally-sensitive care depends on health care professionals being able to recognize their own culture, their patient’s culture and how both affect patient-provider communication. With this fundamental premise in mind, we offer cross-cultural communications training for health care professionals.

“Our focus is on practical strategies and communications skills for more successful interactions between providers and patients from all cultural backgrounds.”- Marcia Carteret

The Core Concepts of Our Program

• Everyone has a culture
• There is an American medical culture and it is very different from many of the cultures that our patients and families come from.
• Our responses to cultural difference are automatic, often subconscious, and can have strong influence on the patient-provider relationship
• A provider’s culture is influenced by his/her own personal values and beliefs, as well as those of the Western medical culture.
• A provider’s ability to communicate effectively in cross-cultural interactions is greatly enhanced by his/her grasp of cross-cultural communication skills.
• Culturally sensitive care requires an understanding of how culture affects health beliefs and behaviors. It is important for clinicians to be able to identify the effects of cultural and linguistic differences on health promotion, disease prevention, diagnosis and treatment.
• Providing linguistically appropriate care requires being able to: 1.) assess the need for interpreters in the clinical setting and 2.) use interpreters effectively

Trainings We Offer