Table 1 Facilitating factors to react to cultural attitude/behavior that does not align with treatment path
Facilitating Characteristics | Representative Quotation |
|---|---|
Humility | It’s about having humility and always working on listening There used to be this idea of cultural competence, but that’s moved out the window. We are now working to have cultural humility, to have humbleness in what we do not know |
Curiosity | One of the reasons I’ve been successful and sustained in this area where a lot of other providers have a really short tenure is because I respond with a lot of curiosity. A lot of things that we do in medicine now are somewhat wise tale or passed along. There’s a real component of culture in healthcare. I see challenges of that in both traditional and non-traditional medicine and often learn a lot from people who have been in the community identified as medicine men or women. In the end, we all have the same goal, right? One trait that is nurtured in our field (social work) and among people who choose our field is empathetic curiosity |
Caution | I am very attentive to cultural elements in healthcare. My entire career has been working around under-privileged, poverty-stricken or racially diverse patients, and I think that I realized the reality of medicine’s shortcomings when it comes to cultural insensitivity |
Empowered resistance | Reactive anger or resistance doesn’t help anyone, but empowered resistance… those are two separate things. When I hit an edge with people, we talk about their anger and resistance and then we figure out where to go together |
Alignment | On a pragmatic level, we recognize that when nurturing any relationship and developing trust, there first needs to be alignment One thing I regularly remind myself of is that it’s not about me. Any tension that I’m feeling is nothing compared to the distrust that the family is feeling. After the pressure is taken off, align, align, align, align |
Humor | My goal is to help people become kinder, compassionate, and more open first to themselves, then to other people, so there’s a lot of humor when I reach an edge |