Cultural Competence Reflection

Health care providers serve a diverse patient population, including patients who vary in terms of race, ethnicity, age, gender, religious affiliation, language, sexual orientation, gender identity, physical and cognitive ability, and socioeconomic status. It is important for health care providers to become skilled in providing culturally competent care to the broad range of individuals they will serve.

This assignment asks you to reflect on your experiences and current ability in providing care to a diverse patient population. Your reflection paper should contain two parts:

First, respond to the following two questions:
• How important (on a scale of 1-10) do you think it is for you to be skilled in working with a diverse patient population? Explain why you picked this number?
• How confident (on a scale of 1-10) are you in your ability to work effectively with a diverse patient population? Explain why you picked this number?

Second, think of three patients you have seen who reflect, from your perspective, the diverse patient population you care for during your dental school clinical experiences. In your reflection paper, describe each of the patients you selected (for reasons of confidentiality and privacy, please refer to the patients as Patient A, Patient B and Patient C. You must not include any PHI, so please do not include patient names and/or chart numbers and/or specific details that would result in the individual being identifiable – because you will be submitting your papers electronically, inclusion of a patient name, chart number or specific identifying information will result in an automatic failure on this assignment.

Analyze your interaction with each individual. Use the following steps:

Look back: What stands out in your mind about the interaction (something that happened or something you continue to think about)?

Think in depth: As you analyze your experience, what ideas, guesses or interpretations come to mind? (For example: “This might be because…”)

Learn about yourself: What did you learn? (For example: “I have learned that…”, “I now realize….”, “I find myself wondering if…”)

Plan your next steps: For example: Would you do something differently next time? Would you change your thinking or attitude(s) next time? Do you need to think about things further or gain additional knowledge?

Please submit an electronic copy of your paper 2 through Canvas (click on “Assignments” in Canvas to submit).