Student Name: Theresa Harris
Grant Advisor: Michele Acker
Student Status: Masters Student
Quarter: Spring 2003

PART I. Leadership
Activity: While being assigned to the Children's and Teen Clinic at Harbor View Medical Center during the Winter Quarter, I was asked by the hospital's Patient Education Library Resource coordinator to reveiw 22 pamphlets for cultural sensitivity. The hospital is a very culturally diverse medical facility. They have a large Somali and middle eastern population. In order to prepare for the literature review, I went on ETHNOMED to obtain more information about the cultural medical beliefs of more represented populations for the hospital. This is a really neat site and I learned quite a bit about other cultures.

Advocacy Services

Health Education
Outcome: This activity helped me with honing my knowledge on how to be culturally sensitive to populations of minorities from third world countries. I was familiar with the English (Great Britian) and Japanese medical practices due to beign stationed in both places during my military career. African and Middle Eastern medical practices differ greatly from the medical practices I had experienced. This strengthened my skills because I learned some specifics about other cultures and their perspective on medicine. Personally, this enabled me to be more sensitive to when a family refused to have certain procedures done. Leadership wise, I was able to provide them with alternatives and the option of returning later to have the procedure done if they changed their minds. I learned that just because we have strong beliefs about immunizing our children, this is not a concept all cultures share; I am more accepting of their desires. I plan to incorporate this information into my scholarly project for disciplining children with special needs.


PART II. Cultural Competence
Additional Activity:

Outcome:

Faculty Comments: Theresa, What a great opportunity for you! This activity can really be seen as both leadership and cultural competency. I'm so glad you have become familiar with the Ethnomed site. We are really lucky to have this in our area. I will be interested to see your completed scholarly project. There are multiple issues for families with special needs children from diverse cultures. Great topic! Michele