Cultural Safety: Starting a conversation

Specialist Medical Colleges Workshop #5
April 2021

 

“… you planted seeds of encouragement to continue learning and discovering how I and others can be culturally safe.”

On 27th and 28th of April 2021 we held the fifth of our Specialist Medical Colleges Workshops. The workshop was online. Guest presentations from A/Prof Lilon Bandler, Dr Andrea McKivett, Dr Jade Tamatea,  Dr Curtis Walker, and discussions were facilitated by Dr Shayne Bellingham, Candice Makenzie, Caitlin Ryan, Shanel Cubillo and Jasmin Boys.

Once again, the workshop was well-attended by Specialist Medical Colleges members including Presidents, CEOs, Directors, Senior Managers, Training Coordinators and Education Specialists, with representation from 16 of the 17 Specialist Medical Colleges. Most participants attended for the full two days (3 hours each day).  60% of the attendees were participating in LIME workshops for the first time.

All workshop attendees would recommend LIME Network online workshops to their colleagues:

  • Thank you to the wonderful LIME team, providing the opportunity to participate in the workshop! … you planted seeds of encouragement to continue learning and discovering how I and others can be culturally safe.
  • Thank you for an invaluable workshop, with amazing presenters and content. I appreciate  your time and sharing of your knowledge and expertise to make us better in the speciality healthcare space. 
  • Absolutely fantastic! Great speakers, excellent content, very good use of technology. Engaging and thought provoking!
  • The open discussions and safe space created by the facilitators (& participants) really allowed engaging & meaningful discussions. The presentations were also fantastic.
  • Congratulations and well done. We need you to run the country (Australia).

Participants reflected on what changes can be implemented in their organisation as a result of this workshop:

  • Progressing the steps towards rectifying the imbalances in Indigenous health in training and post-fellowship continuous professional development.
  • Understanding what cultural safety means for clinicians and patients
  • Embedding cultural safety in all aspects of college business, training and assessment -it’s a lifelong journey!
  • Review of the definition of cultural safety within the college – curriculum and educational material
  • I want to continue to employ the concept of cultural safety, and push for [it] in our constitutional reform

Reasons for participating in the workshop were:

  • To engage and build allies in implementing cultural safety in our lives and the workplace
  • To learn and to hear how other Colleges are grappling with cultural safety and enabling their members to provide culturally safe practice
  • To build my skills so that when I’m advocating for actions to reduce health inequities, I’m doing so in a way that does not inadvertently perpetuate them
  • We are trying to embed cultural safety in our College activities …It is a challenging space, and we need to know more to implement this effectively.

In future participants would like more of:

  • Sharing of examples by those colleges or health services further ahead in their journey.
  • Specialist Medical Colleges working together for a shared Indigenous Health curriculum (similar to what Medical Deans did)
  • On-going exercises in self-reflection and challenges to established perspectives.
  • Tips and suggestions on how to introduce cultural safety in assessment processes and to colleagues
  • More explanation about … advocating for cultural safety
  • Is it possible for LIME to work with us as individual colleges?