Workforce Language Services

An article in the Medill Report-Chicago touched on many of the salient issues in creating a culturally competent health care workforce.  An interview with Dr. David Baker, an internist whose career goal is to close health disparities, appears in the sidebar.  The article speaks to many of the barriers that make cultural competency training necessary, such as immigration status, language, and customs. 

It also includes an interesting perspective on melding traditional and non-traditional medicine so as to provide the most effective, inclusive health care:

Elizabeth Heinz, who has a degree in Oriental Medicine and works at “Well Spring: Acupuncture and Chinese Herbology” in Evanston, said Chinese medicine also gives a holistic approach toward curing the patient.

“A patient comes in and the diagnosis lasts about an hour,” she said. “You talk about the problem and also about everything else, like how do you sleep and do you get headaches. We get a good picture about what’s going on because everything hangs together.”

Heinz said the most effective treatments derive from a combined use of Chinese medicine and Western medicine. She said that in China the two healing methods can be found in the same facility and the patients are directed to one or the other according to their needs.

To read this comprehensive article and the interview, click here.