New Case Studies in Cultural Competency Have Arrived

New Case Studies in Cultural Competency Have Arrived

Creating cultural competency is essential on college campuses, in our communities and in the workplace. ASCO’s Diversity and Cultural Competency Committee (DCCC) recently posted an updated version of their online resource, Case Studies in Cultural Competency. This downloadable compendium of case studies is available at no charge to faculty, students and other interested individuals at ASCO member schools and colleges. It contains the winning and best case studies from three years worth of entries submitted to the ASCO Cultural Competency Case Study Competition for optometry students and residents. Entrants in each of the three competitions were asked to describe how cultural competency played a role in a patient-based encounter during their clinical education.

The case studies augment the ASCO Guidelines for Culturally Competent Eye and Vision Care, and faculty members and institutions are encouraged to incorporate the case studies into their curricula as tools to help educate students about cultural competence and promote it in the clinical setting. For those wanting to incorporate cultural competency into their teaching and clinical efforts, the compendium is a must-have tool. Each case study is of an actual patient-based encounter; offers details regarding patient-centered attitude, knowledge, and skills; discusses the dilemma or circumstance pertaining to cultural awareness/competency; and describes how the situation was handled and what was learned from it. Case discussion questions are also included in the document.

In 2014, the DCCC launched the ASCO Cultural Competency Case Study Competition for Students and Residents with the goal of receiving case studies that could be utilized during cultural competency curriculum guidelines implementation workshops and by all optometric educators. Walmart generously funded the DCCC’s cultural competency efforts in 2014 and 2015.