Abstract
Cultural competence is an ongoing process in which healthcare providers strive to effectively work within the cultural context of a client, individual, family or community. Enhanced cultural competence builds stronger provider-patient relationships, improves knowledge, skills and attitudes of health professionals, improves client trust and satisfaction, and prevents serious diagnostic or treatment errors that stem directly from provider-patient differences. Funded by the Jane Engelberg Memorial Fellowship (JEMF), Warren developed the Genetic Counseling Cultural Competence Toolkit (GCCCT) in 2009 as an on-line resource to promote culturally competent care within the genetic counseling profession. The aim of our current study was to assess the extent to which genetic counseling training programs are using the GCCCT, how it is being integrated into program curricula, and to obtain feedback from program directors about the usefulness of the GCCCT as an on-line resource. We invited genetic counseling program directors to participate in an on-line anonymous survey. Of the 34 eligible program directors, eleven (32%) completed the survey. All program directors that responded to the survey endorsed the idea that cultural competency training was important for their students. Eight respondents indicated that they had increased time spent or emphasis on cultural competence training in the past three years. All respondents strongly agreed or agreed that the GCCCT is as a valuable tool for students, noting that it could be useful to students in a variety of clinical and nonclinical situations, particularly in working with diverse clinical populations, working with interpreters and exploring cultural differences. However, only three directly cited inclusion of the GCCCT in their curricula. Future recommendations to promote cultural competence in genetic counseling graduate programs include: the sharing of helpful GCCCT resources amongst programs, providing the GCCCT as a resource to clinical supervisors and faculty, and the institution of multicultural competencies in ACGC accreditation guidelines.