The United States population continues to increase and diversify. The
cultural composition within the United States embodies a multitude of people
from a variety of belief systems, religious backgrounds, and ethnicities.
Within current biomedical practice, many of these differences are often
marginalized, leaving populations with unsatisfactory experiences in seeking
health care. Cultural competency attempts to address those differences in
health care delivery. Many health care institutions are striving to become
more culturally competent yet there is not a common understanding of what
cultural competency means. In addition, there are many obstacles that limit
the implementation of cultural competency in health care delivery.
This thesis examines the need for cultural competency in health care,
addressing the lack of understanding between institutions regarding cultural
competency and assessing its understanding at one particular institution.
Recent research at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon
has provided new insight to the discussion of cultural competency and how
uniquely it can be defined in a single institution. Qualitative interviews were
conducted with medical students, physicians/physicians-in-training,
administrators and nurses/CMA in order to uncover how cultural competency is defined as well as the issues that are involved when delivering culturally
competent health care. By being aware of an institution's cultural
composition and understanding of cultural competency can help that
institution enact health programs and policies that have a better chance of
representing and respecting the populations they serve. / Graduation date: 2003
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ORGSU/oai:ir.library.oregonstate.edu:1957/28453 |
| Date | 04 December 2002 |
| Creators | Racansky, Pamela A. |
| Contributors | Khanna, Sunil |
| Source Sets | Oregon State University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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