manifest in several ways. For example, a healthcare provider might unconsciously give less attention to a patient or make assumptions about their medical needs based on race, gender, or age. The unconscious assumptions can lead to delayed or inadequate care, misdiagnoses, or inappropriate treatments, all of which can adversely impact health outcomes. Addressing implicit bias in healthcare is crucial for achieving equity in medical treatment. Strategies to combat these biases involve education and awareness programs for
healthcare professionals. These programs help individuals recognize and acknowledge their biases, fostering a more empathetic and unbiased approach to patient care. Additionally, implementing policies and procedures prioritizing equitable treatment for all patients can play a pivotal role in reducing healthcare disparities. Ultimately, confronting implicit bias in healthcare is essential to creating a more just and equitable healthcare system where everyone receives fair and equal treatment regardless of their background or characteristics.
INTRODUCTION
In the context of healthcare services cultural humility is defined as “a process of being aware of how people’s culture can impact their health behaviors and, in turn, using this awareness to cultivate sensitive approaches in treating patients” (Prasad et al., 2016). In contrast, cultural competency is described as ensuring that healthcare professionals learn a quantifiable set of attitudes that allow them to work effectively within the cultural context of each patient. There is an end point to cultural competency. It ends with the termination of the healthcare professional- patient relationship. On the other hand, cultural humility is an ongoing process, which requires continual self-reflection and self-critique. Cultural humility is a prerequisite to cultural competency. It forms a basis for effective, harmonious healthcare professional-patient relationships (Prasad, 2016). Cultural humility involves entering into a professional relationship with a patient by honoring the patient’s beliefs, customs, and values. Cultural competency is described as a skill that can be taught, trained, and achieved. This approach is based on the concept that the greater the knowledge a healthcare professional has about another culture, the greater the competence in practice. Cultural humility de-emphasizes cultural knowledge and competency and focuses on lifelong nurturing of self-reflection and self- critique, promotion of interpersonal sensitivity, addressing power imbalances, and promoting the appreciation of intracultural variation and individuality (Stubbe, 2020). This humility exemplifies respect for human dignity. An important part of cultural humility is identifying one’s own biases, self-understanding, and interpersonal sensitivity. Definitions Diversity is a multidimensional concept that refers to many aspects of an individual that combine to comprise an overall sense of self. Moreover, diversity occurs within a cultural and social context where variances within the general population are treated differentially based on the social, political, and cultural constructs existing within a society. Some dimensions of diversity include race, socioeconomic class, gender, sexual orientation (i.e., identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, queer/questioning [LGBQ]), gender identification (i.e., identifying as transgender), and disability. Although this is not an exhaustive list of all elements of individual diversity, it does address many prominent dimensions of diversity an individual may have as well as determine where that individual falls within the societal hierarchy. Dimensions of diversity also serve to privilege and empower some members of society while oppressing and marginalizing other members of society (Sue & Sue, 2021). Intersectionality is a concept that is used to describe how these various dimensions come together to privilege or oppress individuals and groups of individuals. Intersectionality is defined as “multiple, intersecting identities and ascribed social positions (e.g., race, gender, sexual identity, class) along with associated power dynamics,
It is important that healthcare professionals nurture an appreciation for the many facets of each patient, including culture, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual identity, and lifestyle. According to Yancu (2017), healthcare professionals need both process (cultural humility) and product (cultural competence) to effectively provide care and interact with a culturally diverse society. Healthcare Professional Consideration: A culturally humble healthcare professional needs to be able to provide services that transcend culture, ability, LGBTQ status, and class, as well as integrate healthcare professional-stated cultural and other considerations into treatment. Moreover, the healthcare professional must recognize the roles that power, privilege, and oppression play in both the counseling relationship and the experiences of patients (Sue & Sue, 2021). Self-Assessment Quiz Question #1 Which of the following statements pertains to the definition of cultural humility? a. Healthcare professionals must learn a quantifiable set of attitudes. b. Cultural humility is an ongoing process. c. Cultural humility is a skill that can be taught. d. Healthcare professionals know that there is an end point to cultural humility.
DIMENSIONS OF DIVERSITY IN THE UNITED STATES
as people are at the same time members of many different social groups and have unique experiences with privilege and disadvantage because of those intersections” (Rosenthal, 2016, p. 475). Each individual has a multitude of diverse identities; some Each individual has a multitude of diverse identities; some are visible and some are not readily identifiable. Each of the identities intersects with the other identities. The multiple intersections can serve to foster further oppression and marginalization or further power and privilege, and/ or they could mitigate one another, providing some facets of privilege and others of oppression. For example, an African American college professor who is a heterosexual woman with a doctoral degree is often oppressed and marginalized because of her race and gender; however, as a highly educated academic who is not gay, she experiences power and privilege, particularly in the academic classroom setting as the course professor. Another example is a female student who has experienced poverty on and off throughout her life cycle and identifies as biracial and gay; she may experience multiple identities that compound her oppression and marginalization (i.e., female, poor, gay, biracial).
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