Throughout their training, physicians are taught to identify and diagnose diseases, but minimal time is spent on learning how patients’ ethnic and cultural backgrounds can affect their health needs.
The Pennsylvania Medical Society (PAMED) is working to help physicians provide the best care to patients from all ethnic backgrounds and eliminate ethnic health care disparities. PAMED recently adopted a set of principles to guide its work on ethnic health care disparities.
“It’s important for Pennsylvania physicians to be aware of these guiding principles. We deal with many ethnic cultures and work hard at providing culturally sensitive care,” said Eric Gertner, MD, MPH, chair of the PAMED Council on Patient Advocacy. “But having a point of reference is important, not only to spur action in large organizations, but also to give individual guidance.”
The principles are the same as ones passed by the American Medical Association (AMA) last year. The AMA principles are closely aligned to a similar statement adopted by PAMED in 2005.
The AMA’s Commission to End Health Disparities has asked PAMED to contribute to a project to expand the national repository of state and specialty society policies, programs, and other actions focused on studying reducing and eliminating racial and ethnic health care disparities.
The PAMED 2005 statement of principles, developed in response to actions at the House of Delegates, is designed to help shape ongoing efforts to respond to the state’s continually diversifying patient population, coupled with the federal government’s dissemination of the Culturally and Linguistically Appropriate Services (CLAS) Standards.
Download the AMA’s principles. Read PAMED’s Statement of Principles for Cultural Competency.