Hester Rebecca J
Institute for the Medical Humanities, University of Texas Medical Branch, Suite 2.104, Primary Care Pavilion, 301 University Boulevard, Galveston, TX 77555-1311, USA.
HEC Forum. 2012 Dec;24(4):279-91. doi: 10.1007/s10730-012-9200-2.
Cultural competence has become a ubiquitous and unquestioned aspect of professional formation in medicine. It has been linked to efforts to eliminate race-based health disparities and to train more compassionate and sensitive providers. In this article, I question whether the field of cultural competence lives up to its promise. I argue that it does not because it fails to grapple with the ways that race and racism work in U.S. society today. Unless we change our theoretical apparatus for dealing with diversity to one that more critically engages with the complexities of race, I suggest that unequal treatment and entrenched health disparities will remain. If the field of cultural competence incorporates the lessons of critical race scholarship, however, it would not only need to transform its theoretical foundation, it would also need to change its name.
文化能力已成为医学专业培训中普遍存在且无可争议的一个方面。它与消除基于种族的健康差异以及培养更具同情心和敏感度的医疗服务提供者的努力相关联。在本文中，我质疑文化能力领域是否名副其实。我认为它并非如此，因为它未能应对当今美国社会中种族和种族主义的运作方式。我建议，除非我们将处理多样性的理论方法转变为一种能更批判性地应对种族复杂性的方法，否则不平等的待遇和根深蒂固的健康差异将依然存在。然而，如果文化能力领域吸收批判种族理论的经验教训，那么它不仅需要改变其理论基础，还需要更改其名称。
