We’re writing here to report about the end of a series, but it’s actually just the beginning of a process.
When I talk about cultural competency I feel….
We wrote here about the beginning of Training the Trainer workshops on Cultural Competency at the Assuta Medical Center Hospital and Medical Center system for 60 professionals from their School of Professionalism (They have been chosen as outstanding in their respective fields). This is the first time ever that an entire chain of health care centers has undergone such a process.
Assuta Medical Center
We met with these professionals for three full days (the last was last week), in which they received tools, knowledge and insights into how to facilitate cultural competency workshops. Since the beginning of June they have been leading the workshops. In October, they will present cultural cultural competency workshops to all of Assuta’s 2,800 employees.
Facilitating the workshop
The workshops included peer learning according to different cases. One participant told of a critically ill patient from a religious family. It was clear that the patient’s days were numbered. The family emphatically insisted on hooking him up to a sophisticated machine that was very noisy, expensive to operate, and did not help him medically in any way. Only when the medical staff asked why they insisted on this specific machine, they explained that it was important for them to know exactly when the patient died, so they knew when his soul left his body and they could say the Shema Yisrael prayer. Upon hearing this, and understanding that it was part of the family’s mourning process, they found other solutions. In the end, it was found that a simple, quiet blood pressure monitor would suffice for the family. Thus, the family was able to mourn in the way it needed to, without being an unnecessary burden on hospital resources.
