Cultural humility, in my opinion requires someone to be comfortable in their own faith and
culture that they can put their own beliefs aside and respect the beliefs and cultures of
someone different than themselves, considering the other person’s needs. The points made
about cultural humility by Walters and Asbill (2013) are deeper and more extensive than
my interpretation. Walters and Asbill (2013) view cultural humility as “construct for
understanding and developing a process-oriented approach to competency, giving three
points about how to get there. These three points require great introspection as it always
requires self-assessment. The points of being open to continuous learning, not necessarily in
an academic sense, but learning from people we meet and interact with and able to have a
conversation about what we don’t know or understand. Elimination of the power dynamic
where one person feels superior that the other will be counterproductive when providing
care. Speaking up when inadequate care is delivered due to cultural differences is a sure
sign of understanding cultural humility.
A personal example of cultural humility is seen in the hospitalist group at the hospital
where I help with the group. The population that is delivered by this group is 99%
Hispanic. There are bilingual nurses that work on the unit and the physicians have come to
understand the cultural requirement and preferences of the patients. There is an
understanding of how they interact with the physicians, their preference of pain
management, food choices and infant circumcision. The hospital also equips each room
with a telephone with a direct link to interpreter services all with the goal of improving
care. Formal methods of embracing multiculturalism and encouraging cultural humility is
seen in the incorporation of cultural sensitivity training in healthcare and other fields of
employment that require interaction, such as cultural sensitivity training for hospital staff
(Hook et al. 2013).
References
Hook, J. N., Davis, D. E., Owen, J., Worthington, E. L., Jr., & Utsey, S. O. (2013). Cultural
humility: measuring openness to culturally diverse clients. Journal of Counseling
Psychology, 3, 353.
Waters, A., and Asbill, N. Reflections on Cultural humility (n.d.).
Cultural Humility
Hello Lima.
I read your post on cultural humility and found it to be exciting and insightful. You
manage to clearly explain the concept of cultural humility while giving practical examples. As
part of the discussion, you assert that for a person to gain cultural humility, he/she should be
aware of his/her cultural values and beliefs. I agree with this statement since an appreciation of
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other cultures starts with recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of his/her cultural beliefs. It
is only by identifying how personal values and beliefs can interfere with decision making that
one can gain cultural humility (Foronda et al., 2016). You also explain that cultural humility is a
constant learning process. The assertion is accurate, considering that people, throughout his/her
lifetime, get to meet new people with new cultural ideologies. Overall, it was a nice post.
CULTURAL HUMILITY 3
References
Foronda, C., Baptiste, D. L., Reinholdt, M. M., & Ousman, K. (2016). Cultural humility: A
concept analysis. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 27(3), 210-217.