Before I took this quiz, I thought that I had a fair amount of knowledge about other cultural views because of many courses I have taken that have exposed me to different cultures.  I was surprised, however, to find out that I still have a very long way to go.  I answered 16 of the 23 questions correctly and many of the questions I got wrong involved practices in different cultures and how they differ from my own.  I do not think that I have prejudices per say, I try to be a very nonjudgmental individual when meeting new people.  I like to try to learn as much as I can about a person before I make a judgement on them.  However, this quiz revealed that I do have some biases when it comes to some cultures most likely because I lack understanding for their beliefs.

I was surprised to see that I got quite a few questions wrong regarding how to communicate with patients.  I got questions 5, 17, and 19 wrong.  Question 5 asked how you could best get information about a patient’s medical history when they speak limited English.  I chose an answer that was actually one of the better answers.  I thought that if there was an existing language barrier that you as the medical professional should ask simple yes/no questions that the patient would understand.  However, if you do this, you could miss out on important information about the patient’s medical history.  Question 17 asked about non-verbal communication and question 19 discussed communication regarding the patient and their family.  After reviewing these, I realized that I need to become more knowledgeable about how other cultures communicate.

The other questions I answered wrong were focused mostly on assumptions.  For example, question 15 asked about the types of care minority and immigrant patients in the US sought out.  I assumed that they would generally not seek out conventional Western treatments because that was not what they knew, however, I was mistaken.  I also answered question 4 wrong which focused on health care providers getting rid of their own biases.  I said that this was possible but I think that view in itself is a bit biased as people will always carry some assumptions as evidenced by the results of this quiz.

I realize after taking this quiz that I have a long way to go before I can be a culturally competent health care professional.  In order to take steps to get closer to achieving this, I will do my best to become more educated about different cultures through this class and others similar to it in the future.  This will help me better understand other cultures from my own.  I will also do my best to ensure that I am not pushing my culture onto my patients.  In answering some of these questions, I realize that I do tend to have a slight bias in thinking that certain aspects of my culture are universal when in fact they are not.  This quiz definitely helped me see how I need to improve in order to give my patients the best care that I can.