Medical College of Ohio

[mosfet]

This question is for people who filled out an MCO secondary. There is a question that asks about how you showed cultural competency. The question seems kind of vague to me. Can someone share with me what kind of life experiences they are talking about? Is it in a hospital setting or just in general?

Thanks

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[UCIgrad2002]

yeah, i'm in the same dilemma. i wasn't sure if we were supposed to write about cultural competency in a clinical setting or not. it's funny because MCO is one of the only secondaries i didn't send back, because of this. can anyone else shed some light on this issue, if it refers to in a clinical setting or not? thanks.

 

[mazerati]

I'm an M1 and I wrote about my experiences with diversity in general. If your experiences have been in a hospital setting, then write about it. Or you could choose to write about something outside of medicine. You may be able to add a little more of your personal touch this way. If you have any further questions, I would be glad to answer them.

 

[osar92]

I had a lot of trouble deciding on how to tackle this question as well. I dont know if I even directly answered the question even, but I just got my acceptance last week, so it had to have made sense to somebody on the adcom!

In my answer, I just elaborated on one of my extracurricular experiences - working at an HIV/AIDS food pantry. I discussed how it made me more aware of others living in my community that I had never really come in contact with and made me realize just how great of a problem HIV/AIDS is in Columbus. I had a lot of contact with people with HIV/AIDS, drug-users, homosexuals, people on welfare, etc. I told how this work exposed me to interacting with people different than myself and has allowed me to grow comfortable with the fact that, as a future physician, I should expect interactions with culturally and racially diverse people.

GOod luck!

 

[SaltySqueegee]

For me (white guy), it was kinda hard. However, I did have one interesting thing happen to me during college.

In a nutshell:

Grew up very fundamentalist main stream protestant christian. After high school, went to a very diverse university(10%white, 40%asian, 40% latin, 5%af.am., 5% other). Questioned my values that I was brought up with. Found a deeper appreciation for my religion, deeper introspectio in my self, and a deeper appreciation for other's cultural, ethnic and traditional belief/societal systems.

There you have it.

Interview is scheduled for early January. (out of state applicant)

 

[exmike]

this isnt as applicable to everyone but it worked for me.

I wrote about being a 1.5th generation immigrant. (meaning i was born in another country and moved here as a child). I talked about how i had to straddle two differnt cultures, and be the mediator between my parents who were entrenched in their culture, and american culture. You can imagine there are many times when american and foreign cultures can clash, and much of my growing involved being culturally sensitive to both cultures in respect to either of them.

Ideas in general:

If any of you guys have worked in free clinics, or volunteered for any organization where you had to deal with people from other cultures, that exhibits cultural competency. People from diverse backgrounds need diverse ways of having their health issues addressed. For example, some cultures dont like getting shots (puncturing the skin), so cultural competency would mean provding that person with alternative ways to dispense a drug.

Illegal immigrants may be reluctant to get pre-natal care for fear of deportation/etc, so a facility that provides free pre-natal care needs to adjust to that so that illegals arent afraid to visit the clinic.

Advising an obese woman that lives in the ghetto to go out for jogs might not be the best advice since the chance of getting shot outweighs any benefits of excerise. Cultural sensitivity in this case would be providing her with physical activities that circumvent her environment.

If you think hard I'm sure a lot of you can think of a job or volunteer experience where you had to be culturally sensitive. It can be as simple as working in a food kitchen and treating the homeless that come in there with respect, so they dont feel like they're getting a handout (i.e. lower class citizen).

Hope that helped.

 

[jlee9531]

i talked about my time at berkeley and my experiences working oakland....

cause i come in contact with people of diverse cultures all the time and told them my relationships with them etc...