Cross-Culture: The Importance Of Diversity In Health Care

Diversity is imperative in today’s society. Today’s society expand and network more at a global level, there we find the need for individuals from diverse backgrounds. As a Muslim woman with a passion for human health, the need for diversity becomes evident. A more diverse system is associated with enhanced health care access and overall satisfaction for minority patients. Patients are proven to be directly more satisfied with higher clarity in cross-cultural health. My volunteer experience at the VA hospital, a local veteran’s hospital, granted me with an in-depth hands-on experience boosting my knowledge of the health care system. From my volunteer experience, I became more aware of the crucial need for a diverse health care system, especially having volunteered at a veterans hospital. Our veterans come from diverse backgrounds and are deployed globally; therefore, we’re in need of more globally aware health care providers. For example, a patient previously deployed veteran in Iraq would most likely gain better help from someone with experience treating patients who come from similar backgrounds.
Another major area in need of improvement in the health care industry, in my opinion, is patient specialization.
Health providers need to invest in personalizing treatments for their patients. Different people from different cultures define different methods as acceptable and this is what I mean by cross-cultural health. Being personally invested in a patient’s well-being will result in an increased level of the patient’s
satisfaction.

Having a diverse health care program will for sure enhance the field for both the patient and the providers; however, Improvements in diversity should not come at the cost of overall service quality. As a future health care provider, I will place emphasis on patient personalized treatment and cross-cultural competency. I aspire to be a successful dentist whose patients walk out with a smile with no hesitation to return.