One aspect of working in the world of Health Professions that is commonly neglected but extremely important is cultural competence. In class last week, we learned about what cultural competence is and why it is a vital part of being a successful occupational therapist. A person's mannerisms and values are heavily dependent on the culture in which they were born and raised. Culture is made up of language, values, traditions, and behaviors. If we as therapists are only aware and respectful of our own cultural habits, how can we have successful interactions with clients of different backgrounds? Typically when we think of culture, we think of a person's behaviors, practices, and things we can objectively observe. However, we cannot see someone's attitude and core values just by observing them. It is for this reason that we should all become culturally competent, meaning that we should be able to work with people from all different backgrounds in order to achieve the same goal. This can be achieved by simply educating yourself about different cultures, taking into account how to successfully communicate with a language barrier and becoming aware of nonverbal habits and cues. Being a successful health professional goes beyond one's knowledge about your field. We must be respectful of clients from all walks of life in order to provide the best service for all individuals.
For this assignment, I decided to watch a movie called The Fundamentals of Caring. The title of this movie had caught my eye while scrolling through Netflix a few times before, but I had never taken the time to watch it. This movie is about a retired author named Ben who decides to enroll in a class and become a caregiver. He takes on a full time job caring for a boy named Trevor who has muscular dystrophy. Although Ben has no previous experience as a caregiver, it does not take long for him to gain the respect of Trevor. He decides to get Trevor out of the house and away from his dull daily routine to embark on a road trip together. Trevor saw and experienced things that he would never have had the chance to do before Ben came into his life. Ben made sure that Trevor could check things off of his bucket list without solely focusing on the worry of medicines and treatments for a week. My main takeaway from this movie was how Ben did not treat Trevor differently...
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