Recognizing Your Own Culture

As a healthcare professional, you are part of one or more cultural groups that have their own beliefs, practices, and rituals. Recognizing your own culture's beliefs, values, and preferences (or biases) as well as those of your medical culture will help you to understand the magnitude of cultural influences on your patients' lives and health behaviors.

It's very interesting to learn about the cultures of other individuals, patients, or populations, but in order to really understand them - or their culture - you need to first examine your own. Only by understanding the culture, or cultures, that characterize our own perspective are we able to extend further and examine or assess the cultures of others.

Answering the "Cultural Heritage" questions on the following screens will give you an opportunity to reflect on your own culture.

This Section: ~15 min