Cultural competency can be described through pictures as seen above. There are individuals and children, each of a different ethnicity and cultural background. The picture in the center shows all the children standing around the globe, signifying that they are all equal and understand/ accept the other person's cultural beliefs.
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Cultural competency in applied and critical anthropology
Cultural
competency is the when individuals from two different cultures learn the ways
of the other in order to provide the optimal outcome for both parties involved.
The most common relationship is that between a doctor and their patients. Ask
yourself, what happens when culture is not sufficiently factored into the
relationship between doctors and their patients (Joralemon, 2010)? The answer
is cultural incompetency!
First and for most culture should not be confused with ethnicity. Different cultures originate from different ethnic groups. Culture has been defined in the other part of the website as the actions, beliefs and practices of certain individuals or groups. Ethnicity comes from the different things people and their ancestors have in common for example, race, language, religion and certain human traits. Applied anthropologists struggle to remind healthcare workers that culture is not within the same boundaries as ethnicity (Joralemon, 2010). Applied medical anthropologists work on cultural competency in a variety of different ways. One study was done in San Diego, California at the Children's Hospital and Health Center. The study was conducted by Elisa Sobo and her colleagues. They measured how familiar the culture of bio medicine is to families (Joralemon, 2010). Another study was done in Memphis, Tennessee to explore the challenges and frustrations of those employed as medical interpreters for Latino patients. There was a conflict between the staff, who treated the interpreters as a translation device, and the role of the interpreter while mediating between hostile staff and overwhelmed migrant workers (Joralemon, 2010). There needs to be an understanding of social and cultural structures that supports bio medicine. Improving communication between health care providers and the people they serve, require all parties to explore any assumption they may have when explaining a disease. There is not as big of a stress on cultural competence within the field of critical anthropology since they don't focus their work on helping the individuals hands on. Because they mainly focus on the political/ government involvement in disease they might not come into situations as much as an applied anthropologist. Critical anthropologist still need to understand the basis of cultural competency so that when studying different government systems they can try and understand why the system is the way it is and enhance their ability to alter it.