Palliative and end of life services require culturally competent health professionals.  Supportive Care Coalition seeks through its educational programs and through its Web site to provide resources to enhance health provider knowledge and skills in caring for diverse populations.   This site will provide links to presentations, articles, references and other web sites that members have found helpful to understand influences of culture and ethnicity on communication, medical decision-making,  symptom management, religion and spirituality, death rituals and mourning practices.  Should you wish to share your resources with the site, please contact: Karin Dufault, SP at karin.dufault@providence.org.



African-Americans

• Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life: Initiative to Improve Palliative Care for African Americans (IIPCA)
  
  Key Topics on End-of-Life Care for African Americans: An intellectual discourse derived from The Last Miles of the Way Home 2004 National Conference to Improve End-of-Life Care for African Americans. Among the presentations are: 

• Theological Perspectives on Death and Dying for African Americans: Christian Perspective and Islamic

• Perspectives by Paul Smith, DMin, First Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, NY
• Ibrahim Abdul Malik, Ed.D. Imams Council of New York, NY
• Jeremiah Wright, Jr., D.Min, Trinity United Church of Christ, Chicago, IL  

Jewish Patients/Families

Duke Institute on Care at the End of Life has just published Jewish Ritual, Reality and Response at the End of Life:  A Guide to Caring for Jewish Patients and Families.  This guide, written by Rabbi Mark A. Popovsky, introduces Jewish beliefs and practices around illness, death and loss and provides practical suggestions for responding to the sometimes complicated situations where the clinical, religious and cultural are entwined.  Chaplains, social workers, healthcare professionals, funeral directors, family caregivers and others caring for Jewish patients and families through illness, death and bereavement will find this an informative and useful resource.  The detailed table of contents helps readers quickly find information on specific topics.  Stories included throughout make this guide both a valuable resource for patient care and an interesting exploration of Judaism’s rich traditions.  The cost is $18.00.  For more information, please visit  www.iceol.duke.edu.

Culture Clues™ Series

• The University of Washington Medical Center's Patient and Family Education Services offers an excellent set of brief tip sheets for clinicians designed to increase awareness about concepts and preferences of patients from diverse cultures.  Available tip sheets include:
  
  African American
  Albanian
  American Indian/Alaska Native
  Chinese
  Deaf
  Hard-of-Hearing
  Korean
  Latino
  Russian
  Somali
  Vietnamese
  
• Tip sheets specifically tailored to end-of-life care are available for:

The Latino Culture
The Russian Culture
The Vietnamese Culture

Culture Clues™ are copyrighted by the University of Washington Medical Center and may be reproduced with appropriate attribution.

Click here for copyright conditions and  to access Culture Clues.