Cross-Cultural Competence, an Unknown Necessity in Medical Sciences Education; a Review Article

Cross-cultural competence as a core component in professionalism has a unique role in medical sciences due to cultural diversity clients (especially university students and patients). Despite its importance, yet many aspects of this competence are unknown in our country. Therefore this paper presents a review of cultural competence, its significance in the medical community, and its position in Iran as well as how it is assessed and educated. In this review article, we searched in library and electronic resources such as Sceince Direct, Magiran, SID, PubMed, and Proquest. Keywords used were cross-cultural competence, assessment, education, and faculty members, both alone and in combination. All documents were reviewed. Then relevant documents were selected and the related content and information were extracted. Out of 131 investigated articles in total, documents of 67 relevent and credible articles were obtained. With regard to the diversity of the aspect of this subject, articles were classified in three categories of “importance of cultural competence”, “cultural competency education,” and “cultural competency assessment”. Cultural competence is a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together and enable the person to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. In the care area, there is an obvious link between the cultural competence, quality improvement, health outcomes enhancement, and elimination of ethnic inequalities. In the education area, a culturally competent school is a place wherein new opportunities are provided for students in support of individual development as well as different cultural groups. Therefore medical educators must have multicultural attitude, behavior, and knowledge to help different types of clients (especially students and patients) appropriately. Since cultural variables are affected by various factors in our country, it is necessary to investigate this phenomenon in our own cultural setting. Moreover, a comprehensive plan must be developed for its educational strategies and assessment among faculty members and students.