Culture is defined as the beliefs, language, values and beliefs that are shared by people in a specific society and cultural competency while is not easy to define precisely enough to make into actions it’s defined as a “set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency or among professionals and enable that system, agency or those professions to work effectively in cross-cultural situations” (Cross et al, 1989), which basically means being able to evolve from diverse perspectives, it is about being aware of one’s cultural identity, views and being able to learn and build on the varying cultural and community norms others. Cultural …show more content…
Some sickness are related to the person’s culture and the way the doctors can help cure it. In Benson’s article he mentions the problems with cultural competency, such as a patient on certain ethnicity are assumed to have a specific set of beliefs that are supposed to help fixed ethnic illnesses making cultural competency a do’s and don’ts list that defines how to treat a patient given their specific ethnic backgrounds. Also according to Farmer, Nizeye, Stulac, and Keshavjee, physicians appreciates that some social factors such as racism, gender inequality, poverty sometimes determine who falls ill and who is able to have access to care and the social determinants of the disease are harder to avoid. Even while being aware of this this awareness rarely translates into “formal frameworks that link social analysis to everyday clinical practice” (Farmer et al, 2006). Another problem with cultural competency is that the idea of isolating societies can lead to serious stereotyping and that cultural factors are not always the center of the diagnosis and can hinder the understanding of the