Mentoring and being mentored for medical missions

What is cultural distress? It is a negative response rooted in a cultural conflict where the patient lacks control over their situation. It results in more physiologic effects on the body resulting in allostatic overload. To prevent this, healthcare practitioners must use strategies such as cultural humility to help patients navigate healthcare. Come find the best ways to deliver culturally sensitive care in any setting.

As we see an increasing number of culturally diverse patients in our practices or on the mission field, we need to understand how culture influences healthcare including through our own biases. How can we develop an eye to see where a patient’s values and worldview may differ from our own? We will review an approach to cultural humility highlighted by medical missions case studies.