Self-Reflection Tool
The following questions and exercises will aid you in self reflection
- Communication – How do you prefer to communicate? Verbally, written? Do you gesticulate?
- Spatial Needs – What is your comfortable range for standing next to someone? Do you often give hugs, touch other people, shake hands?
- Social Organizations - What cultures/groups do you identify with? Are you affiliated with a religion? If so, what religion?
- Time Considerations – Which of the following 3 do you identify with?
A. Past-oriented individuals hold on to old values, traditions, and/or beliefs.
B. Present-oriented people may find it difficult to keep a schedule. They may be late, or miss appointments. They feel they can recover at a later time.
C. Future-oriented individuals use the present to achieve future goals. They believe that what is done today affects their future - Environmental Control – Which do you identify with?
A. External focus: Individuals believe that fate, luck, and/or chance play a great part in their controlling environment. Italians tend to have an external focus: “if I‘m predestined to live a shorter life, my smoking won’t shorten my life span.”
B. Internal focus: Individuals believe their behavior will affect their future environment. White Europeans tend to have an internal focus: “if I quit smoking now, I may have the chance to live a longer life.” - Healthcare - Do you have any beliefs, especially religious or spiritual, that affect your views on healthcare? What do you define as health and illness? What do you think causes illness? What do you think is the physician’s role in treatment? What do you think is the patient’s role in treatment?
Self-reflection Exercise:
For each of the following groups, write down the first 3-5 words or phrases that come to your mind. The more honest you are with yourself, the more you will gain from this exercise.- Black
- Hispanic
- White
- Native American
- Catholic
- Protestant
- Mormon
- Jewish
- Jehovah’s Witness
- Vietnamese
- Indian
- Arab
Now look at your responses. There are no correct or incorrect answers. Rather, the goal of this exercise is to promote personal awareness of the preconceived ideas that you carry with you into the exam room.
Resources:
- The Providers Guide to Healthcare has a short “Quality and Culture Quiz.” The quiz takes about 10 minutes to complete and can help you to examine your own cultural competence. (See: http://erc.msh.org/mainpage.cfm?file=3.0.htm&module=provider&language=English)
- The University of Michigan’s Program for Multicultural Health lists six broad categories that can help us to assess cultural differences: communication, spatial needs, social organizations, time considerations, environmental control and biological variations (http://www.med.umich.edu/multicultural/ccp/general.htm#patterns).