#15 Cultural Humility: Curiosity Failure Critique Respect Growth
Immersion into cultural humility needs curiosity, addresses power dynamics, embraces failure, meditates on self-critique, & fosters respectful relationships. About the Show Welcome to Health Hats, learning on the journey toward best health. I am Danny van Leeuwen, a two-legged, old, cisgender, white man with privilege, living in a food oasis, who can afford many hats and knows a little about a lot of healthcare and a lot about very little. Most people wear hats one at a time, but I wear them all at once. I’m the Rosetta Stone of Healthcare. We will listen and learn about what it takes to adjust to life’s realities in the awesome circus of healthcare. Let’s make some sense of all this. We respect Listeners, Watchers, and Readers . Show Notes at the end. Watch on YouTube Read Newsletter The same content as the podcast but not a verbatim transcript. Could be a book chapter with images. Download the printable transcript here Contents Episode Proem Image created on DALL.E Something is missing. I’m not yet ready to conclude this series on emerging adults with mental illness. In the next and last episode, I’ll dive for pearls in the fifteen episodes published over the past ten months. What’s nagging at me? Each guest spoke from the culture they knew and the cultures in which they received or offered treatment and service. I need an episode about how people can approach, be curious about, and be open to the cultures they experience. Is this cultural competence or sensitivity or what? I sought experts working with a kaleidoscope of cultures—first, Jamila Xible, a previous guest and community health worker with Cambridge Health Alliance. Jamila blows my socks off whenever Photo taken by Thyla Jane PhD on UnSplash I speak with her. Next, my friend and previous guest, Kiame Mahaniah , referred me to Catherine Smail, Ph.D., a psychologist at the Lynn Community Health Center. Cat is a clinician therapist and the Associate Director of Training for Behavioral Health. Erika Malik at the Innovation and Value Initiative referred me to Theresa Nguyen, Ph.D., who has a social work background at Mental Health America . Theresa primarily does research and runs their screening program of youth coming onto the internet to solve problems for the first time. Hang on. Here we go. I learned a ton. Podcast intro Welcome to Health Hats, the Podcast. I’m Danny van Leeuwen, a two-legged cisgender old white man of privilege who knows a little bit about a lot of healthcare and a lot about very little. We will listen and learn about what it takes to adjust to life’s realities in the awesome circus of healthcare. Let’s make some sense of all of this. Cultural competence Health Hats: Let’s discuss cultural competence, sensitivity, and humility. How do cultural humility, sensitivity, and competence come into the team sport of best health? We’ll dwell here briefly, hearing all three guests speak in depth. Catherine Smail: Cultural competence came about in the eighties, a first attempt to start grappling in a new way with the disparate health outcomes that providers saw in their immigrant populations. They tried to understand why that was happening and how to improve care to address it. Cultural competence is becoming aware of your own, who you are, and where you fit within your culture. It’s also about fact-finding, knowing the history of a culture different from yours, and knowing essential customs. One of the challenges is that when you get into medicine or get to a doctoral level of education, society expects you to adopt this expert position. We don’t get to walk into the room and be the experts we are trained to be. And that can feel hard and challenging. That’s a lot of tension, but yeah. It’s a lot to hold. And cultural humility calls for us to do the opposite and to approach people in a way that feels more squidgy. Health Hats: I think that, so you’re not excluding, or cultural competence, what you’re saying is it’s not sufficient. Catherine Smail: Cultural