One of my personal learning goals this semester is to compare communication conventions among diverse groups of people, and to than take what I have learned and apply it to my place of work. For example, some groups may prefer just a short, brief e-mail that is right to the point. While other groups of people may value a more informal face to face conversation.
I would like to learn more about "dominant" culture and make sure to not always use that. I need to learn how to take into affect other people's cultures and values.
The biggest learning goal that I have this semester is to learn about my personal culture norms. I believe that once I have a better sense of my own norms I can use that knowledge to better understand and communicate with people with different cultural norms.
The end goal for me is to take what I learn from this class and apply it to the real world, I believe a class like this is highly capable of transferring over to real world use.
To what extent do my beliefs, prejudices or biases influence my thinking in terms of providing service in my profession or work?
I find that my bias towards people who don't act similar to me hinders my performance at the workplace at times. When serving others, if they don't act how I would act or respond in a similar way that I would I get upset more often than I should. I need to realize that people were raised differently and have different values than I do. Other times in the workplace I find that I may be prejudice upon seeing the way an individual appears, even though I haven't even met the person yet, potentially hindering any services provided in the future. I also sometimes let my beliefs over rule others' beliefs in the workplace, sometimes using my own beliefs to make decisions that someone with different beliefs may or may not make. This in turn could result in a different service provided, were a different choice made.
I answered true while the correct answer was false for the question, "Minority and immigrant patients in the US who go to traditional healers and use traditional medicines generally avoid conventional Western treatments." I figured that if they had their own set ways already they wouldn't bother with any alternatives, much like I wouldn't. I use traditional western treatments and never seek any other form. However, I realize some people are more open minded than I might be which is an area for growth for myself.
I answered true while the correct answer was false for the question, "Some symbols—a positive nod of the head, a pointing finger, a “thumbs-up” sign—are universal and can help bridge the language gap." Again, proving how I may be bias against other ways, I figured people around the world used the same symbols as I would.
I answered true while the correct answer was false for the question, "A really conscientious health provider can eliminate his or her own prejudices or negative assumptions about certain types of patients." I found this to be a great example of how I may overestimate my ability to remove bias/prejudice from a situation. I think this improvement comes overtime, since it is so ingrained in certain individuals who might not even realize it.
Both of these excerpts provide examples in areas I can improve on. Throughout this class I hope to improve on myself as an individual to better serve other people in both my professional and personal life.
