Medical Anthropology

Complete 6 pages APA formatted article: The Numerous Advantages of Medical Anthropology. Cultural competence is referred to as a set of harmonious behaviours, policies, and attitudes that merge in an agency, among professionals, or system and enable that system, professions, or that agency to work efficiently in cross-cultural circumstances. Culture in this context is used with a reason that it applies the incorporated pattern of human behaviour inclusive of communications, customs, values, thoughts, actions, and institutions of an ethnic, racial, social, or religious group. Competence is a word used here as it implies having the ability to function effectively (Bae 47). In terms of operations, Joralemon defines cultural competence as the combination and transformation of knowledge concerning groups of people and individuals into specific policies, standards, attitudes, and practices used in suitable cultural settings to improve on the quality of services, thus producing better results. Medical anthropologists apply the concept of cultural competence by incorporating dialogue at individual levels since individuals are the ones who create and endorse culture, who encounter diseases and illness, and who can clarify the variation within what we comprehend as cultures. Dialogue recognizes that culture is not necessarily language, ethnicity, and common tradition as existing discourse suggest, rather that these elements join with political and socioeconomic stratifications to affect individual experiences. Medical anthropologists assume that culture labels the entirety of an individual’s experience of illnesses and continues to show patients how important cultural competency is in giving the most effective and comprehensive medical care for all patients.