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THE CONNECTION/june 2007       ISSUE#12        

   

     A limited amount of time is allocated to education in cross-cultural care in the US, even though this is considered an important element when treating patients in a multi-ethnic society.

According to Dr. George Hill, the Levi Watkins, Jr. Professor and Associate Dean for Diversity in Medical Education at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, this reflects on how physicians and other healthcare providers relate to their patients. He delivered a public lecture on "The Impact of Health Disparities on African-Americans in the United States", last month at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) Auditorium.

 

     Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) conducted a study on physicians from different specialities in the US, who were interviewed to see how much education in cross-cultural care they received after completing medical school. The areas that were evaluated were the healthcare provider's knowledge in how the patient would like to be addressed; working with interpreters; identifying trust; cultural customs and religious beliefs; accessing their patient's understanding of their illness; and identifying mistrust.

 

     Pediatricians and OB/GYNs ranked the lowest. Less than 50% of Pediatricians and OB/GYNs worked with interpreters, accessed their patient's understanding of their illness and identified their patient's religious believes. These results indicated that this lack of education in cross-cultural care has to be improved if disparities in the care of patients of various ethnicities and races are to improve.

IOM examined exactly what these disparities were when they evaluated the differences in the treatment of patients that could not be attributed to other factors, such as access to care. The assessment of possible sources of these disparities such as discrimination, bias and stereotyping at the individual (physician), "institutional and health system levels" was also conducted.

 

     It was revealed that there are many areas of disparities from the health care system and health care providers to utilization managers, there was also "evidence of persistent racial and ethnic discrimination in many sectors of American life" and social, economical and historical differences also contributed to ethnic and racial disparities.

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