Cultural Competency And Cultural Humility

Cultural Humility and Cultural Competency
Cultural humility is the overall acceptance that there is a multitudinous amount of variations in every culture and everyone’s cultural experience is different. A study conducted by Hook, Davis, Owen, Worthington, and Utsey says that cultural humility is, “marked by respect for and lack of superiority toward another individual’s cultural background and experience.” This is such an important part of being a culturally humble healthcare worker. I feel that with the level of education we will receive as nurses, a certain feeling of being on a pedestal could arise. Our purely objective knowledge of how healing is supposed to take place will have a modern and western bias and it will be far too easy to write off the more traditional facets of medicine that patients may want to explore. It is imperative that every healthcare worker, not just nurses, look at the patient holistically and consider the treatment options that could both be effective and culturally familiar. Therefore, to be culturally humble, it is essential to approach each person with an
To exhibit cultural humility, you must understand that other cultures exist and it is impossible to be an expert on each culture. Cultural humility is a practice full of discovery and openness to others, not a destination to attain. Alternatively, cultural competency is the confidence that you have a working definition of each culture and are able to “hear, understand, and respect the… needs and perspectives on a given patient.” (Spector 6) These two concepts are best utilized together. Cultural humility can become a bridge towards cultural competence by ensuring an individual is open and has the desire to pursue a greater understanding of other’s cultures. When a healthcare worker utilizes both concepts, they allow themselves to facilitate the patient’s culture instead of dictating