Experience working with Aboriginal patients is likely to increase the cultural competence of Registrars, but requires supervision that identifies cultural errors, encourages active consideration of the role of culture within consultations with Aboriginal people and guides the Registrar to learn more about Aboriginal health, including how to access supports to overcome health disparities.
The category relating to explicit discussion of culture and/or Aboriginal health included any use of the word culture; any use of the term Aboriginal; any identification of cultural errors; and discussion of health supports for Aboriginal people.
"The history of such work is filled with stories of bravery, martyrdom, and positive change but also filled with mistakes, colonialism, and cultural errors". Kaitlin Curtice, a thirty-year-old Christian member of the Native American Potawatomi Nation, told me that she sees this moment as an opportunity to examine the legacy of evangelism here in America.
The workshop then proceeded into an interactive large group session in which the Cultural Educator answered questions and gave specific advice on the observed cultural errors and omissions.
From a community engagement perspective, if experience in working with a community is limited, then the potential for mistakes and misunderstandings is likely, including those manifested by unintentional social etiquette blunders and cultural errors [ 9].
The purposely highlighted cultural errors included use of inappropriate terminology around Aboriginality, reference to skin colour as a determinant of Aboriginality, failure to understand the role of the Elder and lack of acknowledgement of the significance of cultural references and protocols which the patient discusses in the consultation.
The simulated consultation was specifically designed to illustrate cultural errors and omissions that could be made by non-Indigenous GPs when providing health care for Aboriginal patients, and was authorised as appropriate by the Aboriginal Cultural Mentors and organisations involved in its development.
Most participants did not document planned teaching on cultural errors in the consultation or on facilitation of health care for the patient given her Aboriginality, despite the patient specifically stating she could not afford her medications and referring to other barriers to accessing health care.
Adapting the language and western concepts used in measuring psychological trauma to non-Western populations may result in trans-cultural errors.
