Nutshell 3: Cultural Expedition
A person’s culture affects their day-to-day life. What a person eats, their choices when it comes to receiving certain health care, who they trust, what they say, their occupations, their hobbies, and many more. In some cultures, men and women have different roles and occupations. It is important for an OT practitioner to understand the culture of their clients and how to effectively communicate and personalize their intervention based on their goals and occupations. It is important to keep in mind that not all cultures are open to modern healthcare or a holistic approach because it goes against their beliefs. Cultural humility is starting to be pushed across all health care fields, not just occupational therapy. Cultural competence ‘is a set of behaviors and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals and enable effectively in cross-cultural situations (Sangrar R, Wijekoon S, 2022).’ Cultural competence was used a long time ago before cultural humility was introduced. Cultural humility is defined as ‘a process of openness, self-awareness, being egoless and incorporating self-reflection and critique after willingly interacting with diverse individuals (Sangrar R, Wijekoon S, 2022). Cultural humility is preferred because it is more unique to the individual and helps healthcare providers not group one person’s culture to the whole group. What I mean by that, just because one has the same culture does not mean they have the same values or occupations. Cultural humility shows differences in culture, and it shows healthcare providers that they cannot truly understand someone's culture because they do not live it every day. Part of being a great OT practitioner is forming relationships with their clients and seeing them for individuals. In order to build relationships, it is important to build trust which comes from learning about the client, their culture, their occupation, etc.
The OTPF-4 noted "The founders emphasized the importance of establishing a therapeutic relationship with each client and designing a treatment plan based on knowledge about the client’s environment, values, goals, and desires. (AOTA, 2020)"
Personally, I would not say I have a specific culture due to my ethnic background except for the fact that I do identify with Christianity. It’s funny because when people find out you are Christian, they group you with the rest of the population. Which is typically, the “bible beating Christian type that always makes the small judgmental comments” instead of seeing you as an individual. I hate to say it so harshly, but it is normal today to group people together based on a stereotype than the individual person. For example, I do not consider myself a ‘hardcore Christian”. I do not attend church regularly and I don’t read my bible or pray every night like I should however I do have certain morals and values because of my faith. Sometimes my life choices are influenced by my faith and sometimes my faith has nothing to do with the choices I make. I have been to doctors who fully believe in science and have no religious background, and it shows in the way they handle their patients and their plan of care suggested for the patient. I have also been to health care professionals who are extremely religious rather its Christianity or another religion and it shows in their suggested plan of care. I want to tie this into culture humility and why it is important to understand and get to know your client’s individual goals and what they want from the session. If I were to tell my OT that I was Christian and they did not understand culture humility, they could easily assume that I want my goals based off my faith instead of finding a good middle ground based on what I want the outcome to be.
REFERENCES:
Merriam-Webster. (2019). Definition of CULTURE. Merriam-Webster.com; Merriam-Webster. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/culture
Singh, H., Sangrar, R., Wijekoon, S., Nekolaichuk, E., Kokorelias, K. M., Nelson, M. L. A., Mirzazada, S., Nguyen, T., Assaf, H., & Colquhoun, H. (2022). Applying “cultural humility” to occupational therapy practice: a scoping review protocol. BMJ Open, 12(7), e063655. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2022-063655
American Occupational Therapy Association. (2020). Occupational therapy practice framework: Domain and process. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 74(4). https://doi.org/10.5014/ajot.2020.74s2001
Comments
Post a Comment