Cultural Competence in Health Care - Tapa dura

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Wen-Shing Tseng, MD, is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine. He was born in Taiwan in 1935 and was trained in psychiatry at the National Taiwan University of Taipei and later at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center of Harvard Medical School in Boston. He was a research fellow in culture and mental health at the East-West Center from 1970-1971, before he was recruited as a faculty member of the University of Hawaii School of Medicine, where he became a professor in 1976 and has served as training director for the psychiatric residency training program between 1975-1982. Dr. Tseng is a consultant to the World Health Organization and served as chairman of the Transcultural Psychiatry Section of the World Psychiatric Association for two terms from 1983-1993. He has edited, co-edited and authored over a dozen books dealing with psychiatry, psychotherapy, and cultural psychiatry.

Jon Streltzer, MD, is a professor of psychiatry at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine where he was a training director from 1982-1996. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado School of Medicine and is board certified in general psychiatry, addiction psychiatry, and pain management. He has been Chair of the Chronic Pain Task Force of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, and is a member of the Pain Medicine Board Examination Committee of the American Board of Anesthesiologists. He has been on the editorial board of the International Journal of Psychiatry and Medicine and is a reviewer for several journals. Dr. Streltzer is widely published in the areas of psychosomatic medicine, pain, and cultural psychiatry.

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Cultural Competence in Health Care

A Guide for Professionals

Wen-Shing Tseng, University of Hawaii, Honolulu

Jon Streltzer, University of Hawaii, Honolulu

Between a growing pan-ethnic patient base, the need to solve inequalities of care, and the clinical desirability of viewing clients in their entirety, applied cultural knowledge is emerging as a major goal of clinical and public health practice. Cultural Competence in Health Care offers a wealth of this crucial knowledge with emphasis on day-to-day clinical work. Authors Tseng and Streltzer, well-known experts on transcultural medicine and therapy, start by differentiating between disease and illness and advise on a range of practical matters, from discussing culturally sensitive subjects to negotiating compromises between traditional healing and established medicine, so that readers will gain both useful working techniques and valuable empathy with clients. Case studies highlight medical issues as they apply to various minority (and majority) groups, and eight insightful chapters reveal cultural dimensions expressed in:

• Concepts of illness and illness behaviors.
• Assessment, interviews, and symptom presentation.
• Hospitalization, medication, family involvement, consent issues.
• Highly charged medical areas, e.g., pain management, transfusions, reproductive issues, organ donation.
• Frequently stigmatized conditions such as AIDS, STDs, cancer, and psychiatric disorders.
• Care by non-medical professionals, including social workers, physical therapists, and nutritionists.

Cultural Competence in Health Care is equally suited to use by practitioners and students in medicine, psychology, nursing, social work, and affiliated fields. And since it s one of the only practice-oriented books on the topic, cross-cultural courses in training programs will find it especially useful.