Cultural sensitivity has been falling short.
I’ve been immersed in continuing medical education slide decks for the past couple of weeks; sometimes editing, sometimes reviewing scientific accuracy, and, the last two days, reviewing translations for US-focused accredited activities being adapted to other countries.
Doing these different activities back-to-back helped put a name to something that I have been slowly becoming aware of: the lack of real cultural nuance in medical content aimed at clinicians and patients.
All of the decks that I reviewed had a component or two about culture and language preference. For example, a Latina woman who preferred to read health-related topics in Spanish, and a patient who wasn’t taking their medication due to cultural beliefs (without specifying which beliefs those are!).
The activities addressed these barriers. Still, something was missing. The clinician learning from these activities will know how to act in these specific scenarios, but they won’t have the tools to actually understand these needs. Why does a person need information in Spanish? We usually assume limited English proficiency.
The reality is often more nuanced. Sometimes emotional factors shape how we interact with information; different sources making the same claim will have varying degrees of credibility among a specific population.
The context for cultural preference and nuance is usually missing from medical education: culture is defined in shallow terms, and the deliverable carries the same defect.
What ends up happening is that the clinician has a band-aid for one scenario, but that’s not a framework for the next patient. Medical education can be effective at teaching the best course of action to implement a new therapy, but it misses the long-term goal of increasing cultural sensitivity.
When English-language content is sent to translators, the brief is framed as an adaptation to a new language without considering why the original is not working; it becomes a checklist. So, we don’t know if accuracy is the issue or if register and credibility are the main problems. Translations can be accurate and still fall flat if we don’t understand the core of the problem.
Next time a brief lands, ask one question before you quote: Is this a comprehension problem or a credibility problem? If you translate, ask it about the reader who “prefers Spanish.” If you write, ask it about the patient in the scenario. Most clients can’t answer. That gap is the work, and naming it is what separates you from freelancer who executes the brief and consultant who shapes the way.