Personal Learning Goals

There are a number of things I know I can improve on when it comes to cultural competency.  The one that I feel is the most important for myself is becoming more aware that every person I interact with in health care and also just in general may come from a different culture or have different opinions or beliefs than my own. I think it's really going to take a lot of work and practice to be perceptive of each person I encounter. This is more of an internal personal goal I have for myself but one that I think will impact how I interact with people on a day to day basis.

Another goal I have for myself is more focused on this class. I am always looking for ways to improve my skills and learning specifically about other prominent cultures in our country will help me do this. I hope to learn more about the various cultures in our nation so that I can better tailor my health care to each individual. The challenge will be learning the information and then knowing when to apply it. I am a firm believer in being open with patients to find out exactly what kind of care they expect from you. I will happily go out of my way to make sure that each of my patients are happier with their experience than they expected. Most patients don't want to be in the hospital in the first place so I try to make it as comfortable an experience as possible. The content of this class I expect to help me better understand how different cultures approach health care. I have already seen the benefits of knowing about the Asian American cultures in my own work. We recently had an Asian American patient who was in the ICU who had a very large family. They were there for weeks, not just the immediate family, but aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. There were always at least 20 people in the waiting room at the end of the hall for this one patient. He eventually came onto the floor but the family still stayed. They would sometimes alternate who was there to try to keep the room less crowded but the rest just waited patiently at the end of the hall. It was a really good insight into the way Asian American families are very family oriented and involved in each others lives.

The other goal of mine is to spread the knowledge I learn about other cultures. The best way to help patients is to keep the entire health care staff informed. I would like to become a part of that mission. I enjoy teaching people things to help them succeed and perform better in their career. In every job that I've held I always ended up in the training aspect of it. I actually ran the entire training program at my very first job by the time it was time for me to move on from that position. I enjoy working with people to make them better customer service providers. I look forward to getting involved in spreading culture competency awareness in the health care field. 

~ Samantha Holzberger