Honing Cultural Competence In Medical Practice

It might seem like all fun and games, but assimilating into a local culture was crucial to Shereen, who is in Sri Lanka for her research year and wanted to fully be part of the community that she set out to serve.

“This is one of my fondest memories of my time in Jaffna so far,” she said. “It’s also why I am interested in Global Health – because I love learning about diverse cultures, societies, and languages.”

Jaffna serves as a regional referral centre for traumatic brain injury not only to the immediate local population but also to the district’s hospitals, some as far as 118km away. However, the field of trauma surgical referrals within Sri Lanka is still very much uncharted territory. Shereen’s main purpose in Sri Lanka is, together with the neurosurgical team at the University of Jaffna, to set up a traumatic brain injury registry of the region.

“I'm hoping that the establishment of this registry can be a positive first step in allowing us to understand the regional epidemiology of injury,” she said.

The journey to Sri Lanka was a serendipitous one that had begun to take root several years ago. She had come to know of this project through Dr Jai Prashanth Rao, a neurosurgeon whom she first met during her undergraduate final year internship in the department of neurosurgery at the National Neuroscience Institute. A few year later, she reached out to him to enquire about Global Health projects.

Shereen at a district social education centre where she was invited to attend a Children's Day celebration

“The understanding of different cultures and customs aids in honing cultural competence within my practice. This will ultimately benefit my work as a healthcare provider in Singapore, where we must be mindful of the diverse communities we are serving.”
- Shereen Soon, Duke-NUS Medical Student

“It was rather timely that a collaborative research agreement would be set up between the University of Jaffna and SingHealth, which certainly opened the door for this project to happen for me.”

The team’s work currently encompasses setting up and reviewing the registry, which they will use to study referral networks from the district hospitals and characteristics of traumatic brain injury patients being admitted to the main provincial hospital.

While this is her first time working alone in a foreign country where she does not speak the language, it’s been a great experience for Shereen thus far.

“It definitely took some time adjusting and finding my footing in both the city and the hospital. However, I've been surrounded by the most hospitable and loving people.”

From a head nurse who had "adopted" her into her family and would often invite her over to her place for meals, to picking up Tamil to ease herself into conversions with the locals, Shereen’s appreciation for the country in which she is conducting her Global Health work came in handy in helping her understand the sociocultural contexts of healthcare. This is a valuable frame of mind regardless of whether her practice is global or local.

“The understanding of different cultures and customs aids in honing cultural competence within my practice,” she said. “This will ultimately benefit my work as a healthcare provider in Singapore, where we must be mindful of the diverse communities we are serving.”

Shereen (middle) at the neurosurgical ward with Dr Jai Prashanth Rao, where they were shown CT scans for an upcoming case by local neurosurgical consultant Dr Athiththan