“We all have something to learn. Partnerships marked by mutuality and respect build relationships where both the U.S. and international partners benefit and take away relevant lessons. True cultural competence is necessary for a two-way learning process in any development activity.” Catholic Health Association

Crossing Cultures

We are all shaped by the culture and context in which we live. Before entering into a new culture and context, it is important to develop awareness of one’s own cultural lens and implicit biases; knowledge and understanding of diverse cultures; and skills for interacting with other peoples and cultures.

This self-assessment tool is designed to help you explore your cultural competence. Its purpose is to help you consider your own skills, knowledge, and awareness in your interactions with others, and recognize what you can do to become more effective working and living in diverse environments

Every person, group and culture is different. Yet when we encounter others, we often rely on generalizations to describe them. Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie uses the phrase “single stories” to describe the overly simplistic and sometimes false perceptions we form about individuals, groups, or countries. While this may be a natural human tendency, awareness of this pattern is crucial to confronting dangerous stereotypes and bias

"I've always felt that it is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. The consequence of the single story is this: It robs people of dignity. It makes our recognition of our equal humanity difficult. It emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar."

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Challenges a medical provider should anticipate when participating in short term medical mission experiences.

A New Health Context

Entering a new health context requires additional awareness and preparation. “Many of the challenges providers face during short-term international experiences stem from working in a new cultural setting...Within the health care system, cultural differences may be further magnified directly or indirectly through local perceptions of the cause of disease or illness, roles of traditional healers and/or front-line community health workers, different views on patient autonomy and shared decision-making, and differing expectations of medical providers’ roles in a more hierarchical system.‍”


Cultural Humility

Mutual partnership, rooted in efforts to have a long-term, sustainable impact on a local health system, requires trust, humility and honest communication. Humility has traditionally been connoted as a kind of meekness or humbleness, but it can also ‘denote a willingness to accurately assess oneself and one’s limitations, the ability to acknowledge gaps in one’s knowledge, and an openness to new ideas, contradictory information, and advice.’

Cultural humility incorporates a lifelong commitment:

  • To self-evaluation and self-critique, 

  • to redressing the power imbalances in the patient-physician dynamic, and 

  • to developing mutually beneficial and non paternalistic clinical and advocacy partnerships with communities on behalf of individuals and defined populations.

Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998