Title: PACIFIC CULTURAL COMPETENCIES
1PACIFIC CULTURAL COMPETENCIES
- Presentation to the 7th International Conference
on Medical Regulation - 12th November 2006
2Constraints
- Lack of research on the issue so that statements
made can be evidence based - As yet incomplete work by Ministry of Health on
policy framework for Pacific cultural competency
in healthcare - District Health Boards in Auckland are
undertaking Pacific cultural competency training
for hospital staff but limited and not
evaluated - Waitemata DHB has developed a Pacific Cultural
Competencies Framework still in draft.
3Medical Councils Statement on Cultural Competence
-
- The purpose of the Councils statement is to
- outline the attitudes, knowledge and skills
expected of doctors in their dealings with all
patients. (Medical Council of New Zealand August
06).
4A View about Competence and Culture
- competence is a process of becoming, not a
state of being (Campinha-Bacote 2002) - Culture remains as process not fixed, not
predetermined constructed by individuals,
expressive of interplay between individual
subjectivities and collective objectivities
(Airini 1997)
5Rationale for Presentation
- If staff at the coal face do not or cant see
how cultural competence is going to improve their
work with Pacific patients, they will not have
time for it - So start with the most immediate, ie the
interface between the doctor and the patient and
work outwards - Pose a few questions and attempt to answer them
and be practical - The answers will reflect the norm but the
norm maybe changing quite rapidly between
immigrant and NZ born Pacific people.
6Doctor Interaction with Patients
7What should you know about Pacific people and
Pacific patients then?
- the attitude that we bring to the encounter with
you the doctor - our attitude towards health in general
- how these attitudes were acquired
- how can you influence these attitudes to effect
good communication between yourself and the
patient.
8The doctor-patient interaction
9The doctor-patient interaction
10The doctor-patient interaction
11The doctor-patient interaction
12The doctor-patient interaction
13The doctor-patient interaction
14The doctor-patient interaction
15Attitudes
- Traditional interventions can be broadly
categorised from a western perspective as
psycho-therapy and physiotherapy - The use of traditional healing is common
- If a problem can be positively influenced by
faith, psychotherapy will help if not massage
may give some degree of physical comfort
otherwise you will get progressively worse and
die - The understanding of the underlying premise for
medical science is limited to those who have a
certain level of western education - The response is logical in the context in which
people live/lived.
16The doctor-patient interaction
17(No Transcript)
18The doctor-patient interaction
19Organisational Competency
- Organisational competency is the ability of an
organisation to effectively deploy and manage its
resources in order to produce a desired outcome.
The outcome in this case is Pacific cultural
competency - Cultural competency can be a capacity that a
health organisation or a team has or that a team
has access to a doctors skill in that context
is an assessment skill that cultural competency
is required.
20Can Cultural Competence be Learned?
- Yes but requires
- - a desire on the part of the doctor to learn
- - a learning programme that is directly
relevant and responds to the realities of the
coal face in terms of the needs of both
patient and doctor, that is based on research
of Pacific patients needs and takes into
account the constraints of the doctors time and
the other demands on that time.