Dr. Francis Lu is a medical messenger. He travels to medical schools around the country spreading the importance of “cultural competence.”
In other words, he is at the intersection of “cultural competence” and health care. “In the medical field,” Lu explains, “we need to do two things. One, provide patient-centered care, which means respecting and being responsive to the patient’s values and norms. Two, provide equitable care by reducing disparities. Cultural competence is a way of achieving those two goals.”
Lu is the Luke & Grace Kim Professor Emeritus in cultural psychiatry at the University of California at Davis. He says a key determinant for “cultural competence” is population.
“For example, California has a large Asian population,” Lu says. “If someone says, ‘I’m from Cambodia,’ it helps to know the cultural history of that area to know the cultural stress that person may have dealt with, such as the genocide of Cambodia in the 1970s. In this case, ‘cultural competence’ is more of an issue in, say, San Francisco than it is in somewhere like Kansas.”
He continues: “New York City has a large Latino population, many of whom with limited English skills. So, interpreters would be valued.”
In fact, Lu values “cultural competence” so much that, during the early 2000s, he developed so-called ethnic focus units in the psychiatric confines at San Francisco General Hospital. For example, units for Black patients were adorned with pictures and paintings of Black-oriented and African-originated artwork. Staff assisted in producing ceremonies for Kwanzaa held during Christmas time, and tributes to Juneteenth were organized. The ethnic focus units received award-winning recognition as innovations of awareness and consciousness to help solve the racial gulf and create comfort zones in health care. That is, until funding issues arose.
Though, along those lines, nonprofit groups have since sponsored similar ethnic focus units in outpatient facilities that mainly serve Asian-Americans, Pacific Islanders and Russian-speaking populations in the Richmond District of San Francisco.
