Plans to Apply CQ

00:06 Now that we've covered all those determinants of health, we revisited what cultural intelligence or CQ is.

00:12 Think about what your plans for your personal and professional application of CQ will be not only to those determinants of health, but also to thinking about your biases.

00:23 So I want to make a point, people usually think bias is a bad word.

00:27 The words and the biases are not necessarily.

00:31 In isolation, they're not the bad part of it.

00:33 It's what we allow those biases to do and how we allow them to impact our relationships.

00:39 That's bad.

00:40 So the first thing that has to happen is that we all have to admit it.

00:44 So as long as you're a human being who's living and breathing, you have biases, and you will always have biases.

00:51 And many of them are involuntary.

00:53 And some of them are based on our own personal preferences, like we talked about in terms of cultural values preferences, but also just in general.

01:01 Bias is sometimes based on preference.

01:04 And also those biases that are created by our spheres of influence.

01:09 So that is our family.

01:12 Our parents, especially our siblings, our friends, our religious affiliations, beliefs about just lots of things in general.

01:21 Create biases sometimes. And we always think ours is right.

01:25 So I talked about ethnocentrism in a previous segment.

01:30 Ethnocentrism is that believe that we are superior, and our beliefs and ways of being are superior to everybody else's.

01:37 And that's because that's where we're used to.

01:40 That's natural for us to have that belief.

01:42 But the problem comes in when we allow biases and our ethnocentrism to get in the way of fairness and equity, and how we interact with other people, when we allow those to create discriminatory behaviors on our part.

01:58 Very dangerous in terms of being a health professional, regardless of the discipline.

02:03 So the first thing you have to do is be self-aware, acknowledge. Don't feel guilt about it.

02:09 And sometimes I say, guilt is good.

02:11 Because guilt in my opinion, it lets me know that you have a conscience.

02:16 When you have a conscience, you're able to do something about the issue that's bothering you the most. And then that guilt will go away.

02:23 So I encourage you to write down maybe one to five biases, start with one if you want to.

02:30 Then think about what you can do, or what you plan to do, to create some strategies, to disallow those biases, to have a negative impact on your relationships, and interactions with other people.

02:44 The other thing that's very important to do when you think about those biases, how did they actually or potentially have a negative impact on someone? And if it hasn't had an actual negative impact, what are some potential negatives that can happen in terms of those biases? especially when you think about patients and families and persons? Because we're also talking about it in terms of persons because everybody's not a patient, right? Sometimes we come in the state of wellness.

03:13 So we show up just as a human being or a person.

03:16 And how can I not let my biases have that negative impact? And I can say for sure, and I'm proud of this, I have biases. I'm very aware of those biases.

03:28 But I've always been able to focus - first on my humanitarian responsibility.

03:34 So I can go into a room with a patient or group or whatever that I have biases against, but they would never know.

03:41 Because I know what my responsibility is.

03:44 And I prioritize humanity over any of that other stuff.

03:48 So that's what I want you to think about when you write that down and think about how you can do the same thing.

03:54 Now the goal is always to either mitigate or dismiss the bias.

03:59 So there's a mnemonic I want you to think about TOMB, T-O-M-B Taking Ownership of My Biases, and that's what that exercise helps you to do.

04:09 So if you get to a space where you feel like now I'm comfortable interacting with a group of people or a person, whatever it is that I have a bias against, and I can control myself in that situation.

04:22 Then you may want to take that bias that you wrote down because you're gonna work on them one at a time, and you can either tear it up or whatever, put it in an envelope.

04:30 That means I've gotten rid of that, for now.

04:33 But you're also human first.

04:35 So what if it resurfaces? What you want to do, again, is think about, okay, those strategies work temporarily.

04:42 What are some additional strategies I need? And oftentimes, when it's a human being that we're talking about, like if you have biases against white people, black people, Hispanic people, whoever the people are. Whatever your bias is.

04:57 If it's someone from the LGBTQ community, someone who is affiliated with a different religion than you and you been taught something bad about that religious affiliation.

05:08 Exposing yourself to people within those groups is the best way to alleviate those biases, because oftentimes, we're fearful of the unknown.

05:20 So that's where that cultural intelligence approach comes in.

05:24 And one example I would like to use, let's say, when I worked on college, if I got pulled to work on a telemetry unit.

05:32 Well, I'm not comfortable in that space.

05:34 So I might want to avoid going to that unit because I don't feel comfortable.

05:38 Same thing in terms of relationships with people who are different than we are, until you immerse yourself in that and interact in those spaces and learn more.

05:49 Same thing when I said about telemetry.

05:51 If I learn how to work those monitors, if I learn how to read an EKG and all those heart rhythms, then guess what, I'm less fearful the next time I get pulled to that space.

06:02 Same thing with people, if I force myself in some situations, to have conversations and interactions with people who I don't understand or know enough about them same thing happens, the fear goes away.

06:16 And those biases are oftentimes mitigated or even eliminated, because now I know better.

06:22 And I know more.

06:23 And I understand that there are bad people across all spectrums.

06:29 And there are good people across all spectrums.

06:31 But we can't please everybody in one box.

06:34 is the thing that I'm trying to make you understand.

06:37 So when we think about everything that we talked about in this segment, what's the one thing that resonated with you the most that you want to leave here with? And whether it's good or bad? So if it's something good a strategy that you want to implement, what are you going to do to help to impact especially in terms of those determinants of health? And then also, how can you? If you didn't grow up, if you feel like this has nothing to do with me, if you didn't grow up in those spaces, and you feel like you don't have biases.

07:08 First of all, you have to admit it.

07:10 Everything starts with that minutes.

07:12 I always use this example is like this is like therapy.

07:16 So if someone's going to rehabilitation, the first thing you have to do is admit that there's a problem.

07:24 And then you have to be committed to the change.

07:27 So same thing with this, just think about it and you don't have to share your biases with other people because this is for you, not for the world to know enough for people to judge you about your bias is.

07:38 It's only for you in terms of self help and working your way out of this.

07:42 Because the bottom line is to be a part of this profession.

07:46 You have to start to think from a universal broad lens and see all people as human beings first.