Multicultural

Course Overview & Experience

In the Fall 2024 semester, I took HCR 230: Culture and Health with the goal of expanding my understanding of an essential dimension of healthcare: diversities amongst patients. The course was structured to provide me an overview of diseases/illnesses in different cultures, healthcare practices, alternative medicine, and awareness of cultural influences. It allowed me to explore the relationships different ethnic groups hold with modern, allopathic medicine and their own cultural healthcare practices. To comprehensively dive into the above-mentioned topics,  I worked through assigned readings, quizzes, journal reflections, learning assessments, case study analyses, peer reviews, discussion posts, and reports. This variation in course structure allowed me to holistically learn, understand, and apply the concepts learned in class to real-life situations and think critically about the current state of medicine.

A central idea reiterated throughout the course was the implementation of culturally competent medicine that emphasizes on maintaining a balance between mainstream allopathic medicine and alternative, ethnic and cultural healthcare practices. Specifically, I became increasingly curious to understand how cultural competence impacts the accessibility of healthcare and medical resources to different ethnic populations and native communities. I read an article, 'Eliminating health care inequities through strengthening access to care,' that discussed the intersection of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) practices and public health. I realized that when one faces limited access to healthcare systems like clinics, doctors, nurses, and medicine due to factors like poverty, and poor education levels, they cannot secure proper treatments for their health issues; practices involved in the CAM methodology prevail and can provide relief.Increased medicine costs, incorrect self-diagnosis, poor access to health insurance, and loss of productivity are problems that can be solved by addressing and implementing policy changes that can improve quality of medical support provided.

By the end of the course, I also completed the 'Improving Cultural Competency for Behavioral Health Professionals' through the Think Cultural Health organization. The course provided insights on multi-faceted nature of practicing medicine: a healthcare provider must not only devise appropriate treatment plans, but also understand how patients perceive and engage with them due to their cultural backgrounds and worldviews. I was prompted to understand that every patient cannot be treated in a similar manner, even if their diagnoses are identical; it made me realize that being culturally competent is a trait that prompts appropriate approaches to patient care by tailoring their treatment plans to their cultural backgrounds, belief systems, and needs. As a future healthcare provider, I envision myself being a culturally competent professional by continuously increasing my knowledge about how I view my cultural identity as well as working on expanding my knowledge base about those of my patients.

Relation to Grand Challenges Theme: Health

As a biomedical engineer, I am enthusiastic about collaborating with physicians and surgeons to improve the current state of medical care provided to them. I hope to apply my technical skills in developing and enhancing treatments, therapies, and healthcare systems to allow for more accurate, precise, and timely care for patients. Since I envision myself to be working closely with healthcare providers, it is incredibly important for me to understand the non-technical dimension of medicine: working with patients and physicians from different backgrounds and cultures. 

This course was an essential connection to my Grand Challenges Theme of Health because it directly connected me to abstract ideas about medicine and approaches to patient interactions that can impact the relationships that people hold with mainstream medicine, alternative medical practices, and their beliefs. I think this course was an engaging extension to my technical BME courses that allowed me to learn and reflect on how current medical devices and treatments are being approached by the patients in addition to challenges they face with their healthcare. While the Grand Challenges Theme of Health focuses on the innovation of the next generation of medicine and healthcare practices, it is incredibly important to focus on the impact this has on the patient community through factors like affordability, accessibility, and equity of care. By keeping these criteria at the forefront while designing therapies, we can better recognize gaps in the healthcare system and create innovative, inclusive solutions that meet diverse patient needs, ultimately shaping us into more thoughtful and capable engineers.

Value Created

While my time at ASU did build my interpersonal skills when working in cross-functional teams, it also supported me in becoming increasingly inclusive and respectful when collaborating with peers and experts of diverse backgrounds, culturally and technically. However, this course allowed me to recognize some of my implicit biases that stem from my perspective of my cultural identity, knowledge about other cultures, and social conditioning. Having recognized this, I can now more intentionally work toward identifying biases as I approach conversations and further strengthen my commitment to cultural competence and openness in discussions, projects, and organizations. By completing the 'Improving Cultural Competency for Behavioral Health Professionals' certification, I realized that I must be consciously aware of how I am letting my implicit biases about cultures affect my judgements of patients in order to overcome those biases and be fair to my patients.

Through this course, I have gained a deeper appreciation for the influence of factors like communication methods, treatment adherence, and physician/engineer behaviors can positively and negatively shape patient care and their relationship with medicine. It is important for there to be a balance between mainstream medicine and CAM practices to ensure that patients are included in their diagnoses and treatment plans, allowing for there to be more productive engagement with care and improved health outcomes. Gaining this perspective is essentially important to me as I aspire to work in medicine and healthcare since it will direct my approach to interdisciplinary collaboration, patient-centered innovation, and the development of treatments that respect diverse cultural values and health beliefs.

Final Report