Analyzing Cultural Influences

View the UMN module Culture, faith traditions, and health on cultural awareness in this week’s resources. (Culture, faith traditions, and health.
http://www.csh.umn.edu/Integrativehealingpractices/culture/under/un02.html) Become familiar with the laws regarding cultural sensitivity in health care, as well as your own awareness of the importance of cultural influences. Read Beagan, B.L. (2003),also in this week’s resources. (Beagan, B.L. (2003). Teaching social and cultural awareness to medical students: “It’s all very nice to talk about it in theory, but ultimately it makes no difference.”.
http://journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/fulltext/2003/06000/teaching_social_and_cultural_awareness_to_medical.11.aspx). Note the difference between the attitudes of the medical students toward their own ethnic biases, as compared to how minority medical students perceived those same biases.

Assignment
Present a paper that discusses cultural influences that impact client access to healthcare, based on the text, as well as the resources listed in this assignment. In your paper be sure to address the following issues:

1. What is culturally competent care?
2. Why is cultural competence especially important in CAM healthcare?
3. What is meant by the phrase that cultural competence is a lifelong journey?
4. How do you evaluate your own cultural competence and what specific resources or steps do you plan to use to increase your own cultural competence?

Support your paper with five scholarly references, either articles published in peer reviewed journals in the past five years or scholarly websites.
Length: 5-7 pages