Workforce Language Services

New Mexico, New Jersey, and California are among a handful of states that have passed legislation requiring the public institutions with health education programs to provide cultural competency training to students. 

Having culturally sensitive medical practitioners is imperative in both areas where there is a large number of one specific culture or nationality as well as in areas with multiple cultures, languages, and national origins. 

“We don’t expect that a provider is going to know everything about every nationality,” said William Flores, chairman of New Mexico’s task force charged with developing the curriculum. “The critical thing here is developing sensitivity and the understanding that not every culture responds to medical providers in the same way, sees medicine in the same way.”

Dr. Elizabeth Szalay, an associate professor of pediatric orthopedics and pediatrics at the University of New Mexico’s Carrie Tingley Hospital, said that it’s important for doctors to understand how patients may be different, but patients also need to be open about themselves, by asking questions and revealing their beliefs, concerns or fears.

When treated patients of various ethnicities, health care providers need to be sensitive to the fact that what might be offensive to one culture is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged in another.  The article gives the example of eye contact:

When a doctor doesn’t look an Asian-American patient in the eye, that might be seen as a sign of respect. But making eye contact is encouraged with black patients, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, which has published a guidebook for culturally competent care.

To read the article, click here.