It's Not Such a Small World After All: The Intersection of Food, Identity, and the Speech-Language Pathologist

Abstract

Purpose Working with patients and families with different cultural backgrounds is now commonplace in all areas of speech-language pathology. This includes supporting those with eating, drinking, and swallowing problems. Becoming more culturally sensitive as clinicians requires us to think less of them versus us, and instead what matters to them, and how best for us to provide expert care. Our starting point for this important topic is not how we tweak our clinical recommendations to fit someone's “culture.” Rather, let us examine what is culture and how should it factor into our professional work? We need to understand how our patients and families view health and well-being, or lack thereof, in general. This will enable us to frame our support and offer optimal care to all stakeholders. This leads naturally to a consideration of the concepts of autonomy, informed consent, and how these factor into person-centered care, and shared decision making. Conclusions As well as gaining an understanding of the frameworks of health and illness, we consider how food and drink are much more than mere nutrition and hydration. Foods signal our individual and collective identities. Thus, to be a respectful and professional clinician, we need to appreciate our role as a cultural guest with all whom we serve. We propose that there is no such thing as being “culturally competent.” Expert clinicians possess a respect for the patient and their expertise-by-experience of health and illness. Such respect is founded in the position of cultural humility, to be a guest of someone's world view, in the same way that we respect being a guest in a patient's physical home.