Cultural Sensitivity Can Improve Health Care, Experts Say

Summary

Roberto Dani, a martial artist and clinical psychologist with a diverse cultural background, is dedicated to integrating cultural diversity into healing and teaching practices. His work is in high demand as the healthcare industry shifts towards culturally appropriate care, which aims to respect and incorporate different cultural beliefs, languages, and practices. Experts like Susan Shaw and medical anthropologists help bridge the gap between cultures in healthcare settings, leading to improved patient care and outcomes. Dani believes that culturally competent care not only benefits patients but also has the potential to heal the healers themselves.

Takeaways

• 🌐 Roberto Dani brings a unique blend of cultures and identities into his work as a martial artist and clinical psychologist, merging Irish American, Mexican Mayan, and Totech influences.
• 🌟 Dani is often called upon to speak at various colleges and communities globally, focusing on incorporating cultural diversity into healing and teaching practices.
• 💡 The demand for culturally competent care is growing, especially in healthcare settings, as it is seen as a way to improve patient care and outcomes.
• 🌱 Sally Reel emphasizes the importance of cultural sensitivity and respect for diverse cultural beliefs, languages, and practices in healthcare to reduce health inequity.
• 📚 Culturally appropriate care aims to address the disparities in healthcare by acknowledging and understanding the cultural backgrounds of patients.
• 🔍 Susan Shaw's research at a community health center in Massachusetts highlights the challenges and importance of culturally competent care in diverse patient populations.
• 📝 Establishing policies for access to interpreters is an example of an easier aspect of cultural competency to implement compared to understanding and incorporating specific cultural traditions or beliefs.
• 🤝 Medical anthropologists like Shaw help bridge the gap between cultural understanding and medical practice by translating complex findings into practical advice for physicians.
• 🌡 The Western medical view of diseases like diabetes may conflict with patients' cultural beliefs, as seen in the Vietnamese belief about the disease being akin to catching a cold.
• 🌟 Taking the time to understand a patient's cultural values and beliefs can lead to better health outcomes and a more positive patient-physician relationship.
• 🌈 Dani believes that culturally competent care not only benefits the patient but also has the potential to heal the healer by acknowledging and embracing diversity.

Q & A

What is the cultural background of Roberto Dani?

Roberto Dani has an Irish American father and a Mexican Indian mother, which gives him a unique blend of cultural identities.

What challenges does Roberto Dani face with his name at the airport?

At the airport, Roberto's name on his ticket is Roberto, but his ID says Robert, which sometimes leads to confusion and questions from others about his name.

What professions has Roberto Dani pursued?

Roberto Dani has been a martial artist and a clinical psychologist, and he has found his calling in helping others bring their diverse cultural worlds together.

Why is Roberto Dani often invited to speak at different colleges and communities?

He is invited to speak because he teaches people how to incorporate cultural diversity and wisdom into their healing and teaching modalities, which is increasingly in demand in various settings around the world.

What is the growing demand for Roberto Dani's services attributed to?

The growing demand for his services is due to an industrywide shift toward culturally appropriate care, especially among healthcare providers.

What does culturally appropriate care aim to achieve?

Culturally appropriate care aims to bring sensitivity and respect for different cultural beliefs, languages, and practices into the relationship between healthcare providers and their patients.

According to Sally Reel, why is the movement toward culturally competent care important for improving patient care?

Sally Reel states that being able to change the way people communicate and interact with each other is important for improving patient care and the quality of that care.

What is the impact of not understanding cultural differences in healthcare according to the script?

Not understanding cultural differences can lead to greater health inequity, increasing disparity because there is a lack of cultural sensitivity and wisdom needed to manage diverse populations in any healthcare system.

What role do medical anthropologists like Susan Shaw play in healthcare?

Medical anthropologists like Susan Shaw help bridge the gap between cultural understanding and medical practice by translating complex qualitative findings into terms that can be useful to physicians.

How does Susan Shaw's research contribute to the understanding of culturally competent care?

Susan Shaw's research, based at a community health center serving a diverse patient population, helps to identify how culturally competent care works and the challenges in addressing cultural elements in a medical setting.

What is an example of a cultural gap that healthcare providers had to address in the script?

An example given in the script is reconciling the Western medical view of diabetes with a Vietnamese patient's beliefs about the disease, which they perceive as similar to catching a cold.

What benefits does Roberto Dani suggest can come from culturally competent care for both the patient and the healer?

Roberto Dani suggests that culturally competent care can lead to better health outcomes for patients and can also heal the healer by acknowledging proper ways of building diverse communities.

Outlines

00:00

🌏 Embracing Cultural Diversity in Healing Modalities

Roberto Dani, a martial artist and clinical psychologist with a diverse cultural background, has found his calling in helping others integrate different cultural perspectives into their healing and teaching practices. His unique blend of Irish American, Mexican Mayan, and Totech identities has led him to be sought after by various colleges and communities worldwide. The healthcare industry is shifting towards culturally appropriate care, as emphasized by Sally Reel from the Arizona Health Sciences Center. This approach aims to improve patient care by incorporating cultural sensitivity and respect for diverse beliefs, languages, and practices. The movement is rapidly gaining traction, especially in diverse regions like the Southwest, where understanding and accommodating cultural differences is crucial for reducing health disparities and improving overall healthcare quality.

05:01

📚 Cultural Competence in Healthcare: Bridging Gaps

The script delves into the intricacies of culturally competent care, highlighting the work of medical anthropologists like Susan Shaw. Shaw's research at a diverse community health center in Western Massachusetts underscores the importance of understanding and addressing cultural nuances in healthcare. While some cultural elements like language access are easier to manage, others such as traditions and beliefs require more in-depth knowledge. The challenge for healthcare providers is to integrate this understanding into their practice, which can be time-consuming and complex. However, the benefits are significant, as seen in the improved patient-provider relationships and health outcomes. Shaw's work exemplifies the effort to translate complex cultural findings into practical advice for physicians. The narrative also touches on the healing effect of culturally competent care on the healers themselves, suggesting that embracing diversity can be therapeutic for both patients and healthcare providers.

Keywords

💡Cultural Diversity

Cultural diversity refers to the variety of cultural backgrounds, beliefs, and practices within a group or society. In the video's context, it is the foundation for Roberto Dani's identity and work, as he merges his Irish American, Mexican Mayan, and Totech heritages. The theme of cultural diversity is central to the video, emphasizing its importance in improving patient care by incorporating cultural sensitivity and respect into healthcare practices.

💡Cultural Competence

Cultural competence in healthcare is the ability of professionals to provide care that is sensitive to the cultural beliefs, languages, and practices of diverse patients. The video discusses the growing demand for cultural competence in healthcare, as it is seen as a key factor in improving patient care and reducing health disparities, as highlighted by Sally Reel from the Arizona Health Sciences Center.

💡Healing Modalities

Healing modalities refer to the various methods or approaches used to promote healing, which can include both conventional medical treatments and alternative or complementary therapies. Roberto Dani is called upon to help integrate cultural diversity into these modalities, showing the video's focus on the holistic approach to healing that considers the cultural context of patients.

💡Healthcare Providers

Healthcare providers are professionals who deliver medical care to patients, such as doctors, nurses, and therapists. The video emphasizes the importance of healthcare providers being culturally competent to better serve their diverse patient populations and to improve the overall quality of care.

💡Cultural Appropriate Care

Culturally appropriate care is a term used to describe healthcare services that are sensitive to and respectful of the cultural beliefs, practices, and needs of the patients receiving care. The video discusses an industrywide shift toward this type of care, indicating a recognition of the importance of cultural sensitivity in healthcare.

💡Health Disparities

Health disparities refer to differences in the incidence, prevalence, mortality, and burden of disease that affect specific population groups. In the video, it is mentioned that a lack of cultural understanding can lead to greater health inequity, emphasizing the need for culturally competent care to address these disparities.

💡Medical Anthropologists

Medical anthropologists are scholars who study the intersection of culture, health, and illness. Susan Shaw, a medical anthropologist featured in the video, helps bridge the gap between cultural understanding and medical practice by translating complex cultural findings into terms useful for healthcare providers.

💡Cultural Beliefs

Cultural beliefs are the values, attitudes, and practices that are shared by members of a cultural group. The video provides an example of reconciling the Western medical view of diabetes with a Vietnamese patient's beliefs, illustrating how understanding these beliefs can lead to more effective patient care.

💡Patient Care

Patient care refers to the treatment and support provided to patients by healthcare professionals. The video's theme revolves around the importance of culturally competent patient care, which aims to improve health outcomes by acknowledging and respecting the cultural backgrounds of patients.

💡Interprofessional Education

Interprofessional education is a teaching approach that prepares students from different professions to work collaboratively in providing patient-centered care. Sally Reel's role in developing and implementing such programs at the Arizona Health Sciences Center is highlighted in the video, showing the importance of preparing healthcare students to work in diverse settings.

💡Cultural Wisdom

Cultural wisdom refers to the knowledge and understanding of cultural practices, beliefs, and values that can inform and enhance healthcare practices. The video discusses the concept of cultural wisdom as a critical component in providing culturally appropriate care and improving patient outcomes.

Highlights

Roberto Dani brings a unique blend of cultural identities into every room he enters, being of Irish American and Mexican Indian descent.

Dani has merged his identities to become a martial artist, clinical psychologist, and a healer integrating different cultures.

He is often called upon to speak at colleges and communities worldwide on incorporating cultural diversity into healing and teaching practices.

There is a growing demand for culturally appropriate care in the healthcare industry, as emphasized by Sally Reel from the Arizona Health Sciences Center.

Culturally appropriate care aims to integrate sensitivity and respect for diverse cultural beliefs, languages, and practices in healthcare.

Susan Shaw's research at a community health center in Massachusetts explores how culturally competent care functions in a diverse patient setting.

Shaw's work indicates that some cultural elements are easier to address in healthcare settings than others, such as providing interpreter services.

Medical anthropologists like Shaw help bridge the gap between cultural understanding and medical practice by translating complex findings into actionable insights for physicians.

Cultural competence in healthcare can improve patient outcomes by addressing patients' pre-existing concerns and values.

An example of cultural misunderstanding in healthcare is the reconciliation between Western medical views and Vietnamese patients' beliefs about diabetes.

Understanding and respecting patients' cultural beliefs can lead to better health outcomes and patient satisfaction.

Dani believes that culturally competent care not only benefits the patient but also has the potential to heal the healer.

Cultural diversity is seen as an enriching factor for the human spirit and a great asset to humanity.

Healthcare providers are encouraged to acknowledge and interact with cultural differences appropriately to improve patient care.

Students in healthcare are expected to learn how to interact with cultural diversity to manage diverse populations effectively.

The Southwest, particularly Arizona, is highlighted as an area with a high level of cultural diversity, emphasizing the importance of cultural wisdom in healthcare.

Cultural competence in healthcare is part of a larger movement towards improving patient care and reducing health disparities.

Transcripts

every year better than last year when

Roberto Dani walks into a room he brings

a few different worlds with him and I

just heard this joke about you know

people from Argentina have some so my

father he was Irish American and my mama

Mexican Indian and when you get Mexican

Irish you get this you know and uh when

I go to the airport I just get down uh I

go with my ticket you know and it says

Roberto but then in my ID it says Robert

and some people are like what is it and

I say

both growing up Dany managed to merge

his identities as an Irish amican

Mexican Mayan and totech and became

among other things a martial artist and

a clinical psychologist then he found

his calling helping others bring worlds

together just as he did I get called to

go to different colleges and different

communities not only here but around the

world because they are finding ways to

incorporate the culture of the people

that they are serving into their healing

modalities or teaching modalities but

when you're a Healer you have to look at

the body and the heart mind soul Dany

teaches people how to bring cultural

diversity and wisdom into their work

there's growing demand for his Services

especially among healthc care providers

that's because of an industrywide shift

toward culturally appropriate care says

Sally reel who leads the development and

implementation of interprofessional

education programs for the Arizona

Health Sciences Center there is a

growing sense that being able to change

the way people communicate and how they

uh interact with each other becomes

important for improving patient care and

the quality of that care so it is a

movement that we are rapidly engaging in

at the Health Sciences Center culturally

appropriate or culturally competent care

aims to bring sensitivity and respect

for different cultural beliefs languages

and practices into the relationship

between Healthcare Providers and their

patients all of us come from some place

whether it be our ethnicities our racial

backgrounds our place U and we have

differences and we've known that when it

comes to these differences that not

understanding them can actually lead to

Greater Health inequity meaning that it

increases disparity because we do not

have the cultural sensitivities and

wisdom that we need to manage the

diverse populations that we would see in

any healthare system so it's really

important for the Southwest when you

consider the sheer diversity of the

populations that live in Arizona that

our students be exposed to this whole

concept of cultural wisdom we would

expect our students to have the ability

to acknowledge those differences but

more importantly to learn how to

interact with them appropriately to

improve Healthcare sometimes students

learn this by turning to other other

experts experts who study what happens

when cultures come together Susan Shaw

is one of

them the research that I do is based at

a community health center in Western

Massachusetts and this Clinic um serves

a really diverse patient population so

it includes African-Americans Latinos

low-income white Americans as well as a

diverse range of um immigrant groups

including um Vietnamese immigrants and

immigrants from the former Soviet Union

I think that patients will have

experienced sha has spent years studying

this one particularly diverse Clinic to

learn how culturally competent care

Works she says some elements of culture

are easier to address than others a

clinic can establish policies that

ensure patients have access to an

interpreter if they need one for example

but it's harder to bring knowledge about

Traditions or beliefs into a medical

setting okay so it's all in really white

that makes sense it's hard to ask a

physician who always pressed for time in

settings like the clinic where my

research is based you know to take the

time to ask those detailed kinds of

questions to say you know tell me how

you think about your hypertension or um

tell me about your diet and you know

what do you normally have for breakfast

or what do you normally have for lunch

and then to work with that sort of

Baseline of information to tailor the

patients treatments medical

anthropologists like Shaw help bridge

the gap work work of translation for

medical anthropologists is to take our

detailed nuanced complex contradictory

qualitative findings and put them in

terms that can be useful to Physicians

you know because a lot of Physicians

that I speak with are very frustrated by

the kinds of gaps in understanding that

they encounter with their

patients in the clinic Shaw studies

healthc care providers run into these

gaps again and again in one example they

had to reconcile the Western Medical

view of diabetes with a Vietnamese

patients beliefs about the disease it's

kind of akin to the experience of um

catching a cold so for example um you

know when I grew up I was always told

like don't go outside without a hat on

because you'll catch a cold by the cold

air getting into your hair or whatever

some of the Vietnamese participants that

we talked to talked about their

experience of diabetes was related to

this wind which kind of blew away their

sort of protective outer

layer I guess so for a Vietnamese

patient who's experiencing diabetes it's

kind of all of a piece with a broader

set of ideas about you know the

Integrity of the human body and what can

violate that integrity and in some cases

a medication is seen as a similar kind

of threat as opposed to a remedy when

Healthcare Providers take the time to

understand the world of values and

beliefs their patients bring with them

Shaw says the benefits are real even if

they're not always is easy to measure in

the encounters that we um heard about

from patients the providers who the

patients felt happiest about receiving

um care from were those that did

indicate that they had some

understanding of people's sort of

pre-existing concerns and that kind of

positive orientation on the part of a

patient who feels Hur and understood by

their physician I think can only lead to

Better Health outcomes

Mountain for Dany the benefits of

culturally competent care reach beyond

the patient he says they can heal the

Healer

too so we have a chance to heal part of

our trauma by re acknowledging proper

ways of building communities with

diversity and it's better to have this

multiple voices a multiple ways of being

that enrich the human spirit

we know this and diversity has proven

itself over and over again one of the

greatest assets of

[Music]

humanity