Culture Competency Essay

In the aspect of interacting with the global community, it is important for an individual to understand the cultural aspect of the subject society and relate to this factor in terms of their interactive business. As the aspect of culture manifest to be a significant part in the characteristics and qualities of each individual and collective society, understanding this identity factor is indeed important in the pursuit of establishing an effective interaction with the different people in the global community. In particular to the healthcare profession, the aspect of culture competency manifests to be an important concern in healthcare education as having the ability for interacting, understanding and relating to different cultures can effectively enhance the services rendered by healthcare professional. Indeed, the general concern of the healthcare profession is to render effective healthcare assistance and services to people of different culture thus, the global community is the main subject in this mission. In part though, cultural background resembles an important part in the personal identity of each person or patient thus, the healthcare profession must incorporate this in his or her pursuit of relating effectively the said matter for the benefit of the patient. In the actual practice of the healthcare profession, the concept of culture competency manifest particularly in the personal interaction between the healthcare professional and the patient. In this scenario, the two parties are often with different cultural background yet, in best effort, the health professional must overcome this difference in the process or realizing his or her responsibilities. For example, some of the common barriers are the language factor, the cultural awareness and acceptability, perception and understanding, and others. At some point, the healthcare professional must incorporate the cultural factor in the profile identity of the subject thus, adjusting his or her pursuit and interaction based on this element. Forwarding the healthcare service and assistance through relating it with the cultural background of the patient can effectively influence the understanding and acceptance of the subject in this pursuit. For example, acknowledging the cultural limitations and the preferences of the subject in his treatment and medication can indeed influence his acceptance towards the process. Through this approach, the healthcare practitioner can effectively motivate active participation and encourage interest from the patient towards the success of the treatment and the healthcare program. Due to the importance of culture competency, healthcare practitioner must assess and realize in themselves their individual strengths and weaknesses in this aspect and develop their flexibility towards the different cultures in the global community. In this aspect, the author of this paper realizes certain weaknesses in terms of cultural awareness due to the social limitations he has experienced in his upbringing. Raising from a rural town with a small community and having only experienced interacting with people from different culture during only college years, culture competency has developed late in this author as such it is important to focus much attention towards developing this skill. However, continuing the effort of developing social relationship with people from other cultures and building up academic information from researches and reading can indeed contribute in developing culture competency. With this effort, one can effectively develop awareness and understanding of various cultures and undermine cultural difference towards the mission of providing quality healthcare service towards the global community from different races and cultural society. Bibliography Zwell, Michael (2000). Creating a Culture of Competence. Wiley Publication. 1st Edition. ISBN-10: 0471350745.