‘Have You Completed Cultural Competency Training?’

 

CAQH is a website that serves as a sort of repository of data on doctors. I have to re-attest every 120 days and update my data. For example, uploading my latest renewal for my malpractice policy, did my office address change, hospital affiliations, and so on. I’m not sure who runs this site but, apparently, insurance companies, etc., use it to get info from one central location.

I got a notification that my “Education & Professional Training” data was out of date, so I went to look and see what the problem was. There is a new question, that I have to answer in order for my file to be considered “Complete.” It gave me the chills:

Cultural Competence Training, often referred to as cultural and linguistically appropriate services (CLAS), can help reduce health disparities and improve health equity. To find training opportunities, click here.

I then had to click “Yes” or “No.” I clicked “No” and then looked outside for black helicopters. I didn’t see any. But I suspect I may be hearing about this soon. From a very nice, helpful lady from the government who wants to help me. Obviously.

I’ve never seen an entry on this simple data-collection site that rationalizes itself like that. They don’t have to explain why it’s important that I graduated from medical school. But they attempted to explain the importance of “Cultural Competence Training.” Because obviously, it’s all about the quality of health care.

Actually, they didn’t even try to suggest that this would improve the quality of health care. They said that it “can help reduce health disparities and improve health equity.” Right! Of course, it can!

I love the term they used, “training opportunities.” Wow! How exciting!

I can’t imagine what a class on “Cultural Competence Training” would be like.

But I suspect that I’m about to find out.

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  1. Jules PA Inactive
    Jules PA
    @JulesPA

    CarolJoy, Not So Easy To Kill (View Comment):
    Only a school  employee would have the skinny on doing that.

    News flash, no, school employees do not know how to keep up with the bureaucracy. It is mind numbing and definitely not skinny. 😉

    • #31
  2. Miffed White Male Member
    Miffed White Male
    @MiffedWhiteMale

    At some point someone is going to tell the people pushing this stuff to go [redacted] themselves, right?

     

    • #32
  3. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):

    Welcome to the world I lived in from the early 1970s until I retired in 2013. The training is obnoxious at best. A serious attempt to break down any sense of self-worth you have. They want you to acknowledge the legitmacy of every other culture and its superiority to western culture, the inate superiority of People of Color and the inate corruption of whiteness. While being told about how racially insensitive you are you will be told all that is wrong with being white (as though that wasn’t racism in itself). You will be told that POCs can’t be racist because they have no power (ignoring the fact that their very power is demonstrated in the meeting you are attending). You will likely be expected to make some kind of self-denigrating confession at the end, admitting your guilt and begging for absolution, even though the very terms of the assertions they make make it clear that absolution is impossible. You will bear the mark of Cain throughout your life. Otherwise, it is a fun session.

    Thanks for the pep talk!

    • #33
  4. Dr. Bastiat Member
    Dr. Bastiat
    @drbastiat

    Miffed White Male (View Comment):

    At some point someone is going to tell the people pushing this stuff to go [redacted] themselves, right?

     

    For that to work, that someone will need to be a Democrat.  And there will have to lots of those someones.  Lots and lots.

    • #34
  5. Architectus Coolidge
    Architectus
    @Architectus

    Hoyacon (View Comment):

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    We’re doomed.

    I yearn for the days when “Equity” was a law school course.

    I have yearned for a return to the day when “equity” was just what I wanted to gain in my house as I paid my mortgage.  

    • #35
  6. Architectus Coolidge
    Architectus
    @Architectus

    Stad (View Comment):

    Wait . . . do you have to take this garbage course?

    Maybe not yet, but you will all be assimilated.  Mine are required now, and yes, they still refer to the classes as “opportunities”. 

    • #36
  7. Doug Kimball Thatcher
    Doug Kimball
    @DougKimball

    Whiteness presumes guilt, which is a prejudgement taken for truth.  To absolve your self of this guilt, white people are expected to prostrate themselves at the alter of wokeness, but this prostration is self-prescribed.  To the victims, the SJWs and BLMs, it is all theater, amusement, which they enjoy but they know that otherwise, it does nothing.  It is not enough.  They still want reparation in perpetuity.  The stain of disadvantage won’t go away until everone is the same shade of light brown and even then, as in Africa itself, there will be cues: the curl of the hair, the shape of the nose, the fullness of the lips, that will be presumed either an inherent advantage or disadvantage.   Even twins will argue over the advantages of first born or last.

    Alas, it is easier to blame others for ones poor life outcome than it is to strive, persevere and overcome, or better, to ask government to play Robin Hood on your behalf.

    • #37
  8. Randy Webster Inactive
    Randy Webster
    @RandyWebster

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):
    Alas, it is easier to blame others for ones poor life outcome than it is to strive, persevere and overcome, or better, to ask government to play Robin Hood on your behalf.

    Actually, I never felt that I had to strive, persevere, or overcome.  I just felt I had to work, which I mostly enjoyed.

    • #38
  9. JustmeinAZ Member
    JustmeinAZ
    @JustmeinAZ

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):
    Alas, it is easier to blame others for ones poor life outcome than it is to strive, persevere and overcome, or better, to ask government to play Robin Hood on your behalf.

    Actually, I never felt that I had to strive, persevere, or overcome. I just felt I had to work, which I mostly enjoyed.

    Ditto. Looking back it never even occurred to me to do anything other than work to get what I wanted.

    • #39
  10. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    The phrase “I’m too white to have an opinion on this” really makes the critical race theory session leaders cranky.

    I will not play their game. I’ll play a game. I’ll even use their rules. But it’s my game.

    • #40
  11. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    MarciN (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):
    I’m less fine with trans because their claims are considerably less convincing.

    And to me, their wants and needs and demands are incomprehensible. They want to be considered the opposite sex to what they are, fine, but they don’t want to be identified as any sex, so why did they change? From what to what?

    For this concession to their emotional needs, we have killed the pronouns “he” and “she,” and we can use only “they.” So in addition to self-identifying as asexual, they are aperson. There is no more person. Only people.

    There’s no more “mother” or “father.” Just “parents.” I guess we could have two Parents’ Days each spring. :-)

    I keep hearing in my head that sixties song “What’s It All About, Alfie?.” :-)

    True. 

    Gays wanted accommodation and consideration. 

    Trans want obedience and goodthink.  

     

    • #41
  12. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    TBA (View Comment):

    Gays wanted accommodation and consideration. 

    That’s not what they told me. They told me that was far from sufficient.  Not all of them, of course, but those on social media back in the 90s and early 2000s did. 

    Trans want obedience and goodthink.  

     

    • #42
  13. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    The Reticulator (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    Gays wanted accommodation and consideration.

    That’s not what they told me. They told me that was far from sufficient. Not all of them, of course, but those on social media back in the 90s and early 2000s did.

    Trans want obedience and goodthink.

    That is an important point and it would be interesting to poll actual trans (if anyone is brave enough to make that definition) to find out what they actually want as opposed to what the LGBTQ rent-and-letter-seeking behemoth wants. 

    • #43
  14. Doug Kimball Thatcher
    Doug Kimball
    @DougKimball

    Randy Webster (View Comment):

    Doug Kimball (View Comment):
    Alas, it is easier to blame others for ones poor life outcome than it is to strive, persevere and overcome, or better, to ask government to play Robin Hood on your behalf.

    Actually, I never felt that I had to strive, persevere, or overcome. I just felt I had to work, which I mostly enjoyed.

    My point is, life comes with hardships and you have to get past them.  You don’t wallow in less than ideal circumstances.  You take responsibility and move on.

    • #44
  15. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    Dr. Bastiat (View Comment):

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):

    Welcome to the world I lived in from the early 1970s until I retired in 2013. The training is obnoxious at best. A serious attempt to break down any sense of self-worth you have. They want you to acknowledge the legitmacy of every other culture and its superiority to western culture, the inate superiority of People of Color and the inate corruption of whiteness. While being told about how racially insensitive you are you will be told all that is wrong with being white (as though that wasn’t racism in itself). You will be told that POCs can’t be racist because they have no power (ignoring the fact that their very power is demonstrated in the meeting you are attending). You will likely be expected to make some kind of self-denigrating confession at the end, admitting your guilt and begging for absolution, even though the very terms of the assertions they make make it clear that absolution is impossible. You will bear the mark of Cain throughout your life. Otherwise, it is a fun session.

    Thanks for the pep talk!

    My pleasure. I love sharing the joy!

    • #45
  16. Eugene Kriegsmann Member
    Eugene Kriegsmann
    @EugeneKriegsmann

    Percival (View Comment):

    The phrase “I’m too white to have an opinion on this” really makes the critical race theory session leaders cranky.

    I will not play their game. I’ll play a game. I’ll even use their rules. But it’s my game.

    So long as you are independent of their potential economic pressures, more power to you. But if your job or your profession depends on something that they can hold over you like the sword of Damocles, then you are screwed. They own the venue, and they make the rules.

    • #46
  17. Juliana Member
    Juliana
    @Juliana

    Percival (View Comment):

    The phrase “I’m too white to have an opinion on this” really makes the critical race theory session leaders cranky.

    I will not play their game. I’ll play a game. I’ll even use their rules. But it’s my game.

    I will have to remember this one. Cultural competency training is now required for educators in Minnesota (I’m not a teacher, but am licensed by the Dept of Education). I’ve been in my school district for fourteen years. For approximately eight of those years all of the district provided required ‘professional development’ has been some sort of diversity or equity training. It never stops and more recently, because we are in Minnesota, it has turned racist. Ninety seven percent of the staff are white. And we have been lectured ad nauseum about how we must accept other ‘ways of being’ and how we must examine our own biases. It’s nothing but a lot of wasted time navel-gazing. In one of the struggle sessions, when no one else wanted to give voice to their struggles, I asked a simple question. What does equity look like in a practical sense? Do we treat the three black students in our program differently than the fifteen white students? Do we have different expectations for them? Do we have a right to demand a certain behavior that we in our whiteness believe could be helpful but may not be ‘culturally appropriate’ (however that is defined)? There was silence. The facilitator said she would like to hear suggestions on how this would work practically. That was two months ago, and the subject appears to have been dropped for the moment. Apparently they aren’t quite ready to acknowledge outright discrimination or  suggest segregation/preferential treatment, but if you follow the path to its natural endpoint that is the way we are headed.

    Equity, combined with the school lockouts, appears to have resulted in a school system with no expectations – you don’t have to show up for class, you don’t have to do any work, and the teacher will inflate your grade to the point where it is meaningless. But at least we don’t have a quarter of the students failing, we will have magically erased our achievement gap, and we can continue to boast of a reasonably high graduation rate.

    • #47
  18. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Stad (View Comment):

    TBA (View Comment):

    Perhaps I just have a short memory, but was there this much coercion when gays were moving from deviants to part-of-the-fabric-of-society?

    Please note, I’m fine with gay people. I’m less fine with trans because their claims are considerably less convincing.

    I’m okay with both as long as they don’t demand we celebrate the way they are.

    I’m not. Because they also demand that their feelings be put first – not out of courtesy, but out of fear of being fired. 

    • #48
  19. Lois Lane Coolidge
    Lois Lane
    @LoisLane

    Juliana (View Comment):
    Equity, combined with the school lockouts, appears to have resulted in a school system with no expectations – you don’t have to show up for class, you don’t have to do any work, and the teacher will inflate your grade to the point where it is meaningless. But at least we don’t have a quarter of the students failing, we will have magically erased our achievement gap, and we can continue to boast of a reasonably high graduation rate.

    The way they are hobbling kids is heartbreaking, isn’t it?  Once we permanently rid of the world of racist tests like SATs, we can do this at the university level, too!!!  

    I try to ignore these things as much as possible and just teach kids how to think, but the “diversity and inclusion dean” at our school often sends messages that point one to “professional development” courses that make the classroom more “equitable.”  

    The indoctrination is becoming more and more apparent in every day living.  

    • #49
  20. Blondie Thatcher
    Blondie
    @Blondie

    Juliana (View Comment):

    In one of the struggle sessions, when no one else wanted to give voice to their struggles, I asked a simple question. What does equity look like in a practical sense? Do we treat the three black students in our program differently than the fifteen white students? Do we have different expectations for them? Do we have a right to demand a certain behavior that we in our whiteness believe could be helpful but may not be ‘culturally appropriate’ (however that is defined)? There was silence. The facilitator said she would like to hear suggestions on how this would work practically. That was two months ago, and the subject appears to have been dropped for the moment. Apparently they aren’t quite ready to acknowledge outright discrimination or suggest segregation/preferential treatment, but if you follow the path to its natural endpoint that is the way we are headed.

     

    You may not think so, but this is the gentle pushback we all need to be doing when in these situations. Call them on their nonsense. Of course, the person facilitating your session was just doing what had been put in front of her to say, I’m sure. Eventually, if enough of us push back there has to be some reversal in this crap. 

    • #50
  21. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    The phrase “I’m too white to have an opinion on this” really makes the critical race theory session leaders cranky.

    I will not play their game. I’ll play a game. I’ll even use their rules. But it’s my game.

    So long as you are independent of their potential economic pressures, more power to you. But if your job or your profession depends on something that they can hold over you like the sword of Damocles, then you are screwed. They own the venue, and they make the rules.

    Go full out idiot. (I’m a natural.) Agree with everything. Restate nothing, deferring to “people of color” because of the handicap of being white. If forced to restate something, get it wrong. Be corrected. Get it wrong again. Be cheerful, engaged, and totally oblivious.

    • #51
  22. Basil Fawlty Member
    Basil Fawlty
    @BasilFawlty

    Percival (View Comment):

    Eugene Kriegsmann (View Comment):

    Percival (View Comment):

    The phrase “I’m too white to have an opinion on this” really makes the critical race theory session leaders cranky.

    I will not play their game. I’ll play a game. I’ll even use their rules. But it’s my game.

    So long as you are independent of their potential economic pressures, more power to you. But if your job or your profession depends on something that they can hold over you like the sword of Damocles, then you are screwed. They own the venue, and they make the rules.

    Go full out idiot. (I’m a natural.) Agree with everything. Restate nothing, deferring to “people of color” because of the handicap of being white. If forced to restate something, get it wrong. Be corrected. Get it wrong again. Be cheerful, engaged, and totally oblivious.

    Full Joe?

    • #52
  23. Architectus Coolidge
    Architectus
    @Architectus

    Blondie (View Comment):

    Juliana (View Comment):

    In one of the struggle sessions, when no one else wanted to give voice to their struggles, I asked a simple question. What does equity look like in a practical sense? Do we treat the three black students in our program differently than the fifteen white students? Do we have different expectations for them? Do we have a right to demand a certain behavior that we in our whiteness believe could be helpful but may not be ‘culturally appropriate’ (however that is defined)? There was silence. The facilitator said she would like to hear suggestions on how this would work practically. That was two months ago, and the subject appears to have been dropped for the moment. Apparently they aren’t quite ready to acknowledge outright discrimination or suggest segregation/preferential treatment, but if you follow the path to its natural endpoint that is the way we are headed.

    You may not think so, but this is the gentle pushback we all need to be doing when in these situations. Call them on their nonsense. Of course, the person facilitating your session was just doing what had been put in front of her to say, I’m sure. Eventually, if enough of us push back there has to be some reversal in this crap.

    So far, my required training has been online individual courses, but we have had group sessions that have (to date) been voluntary, though I expect that will change.  I do not know how I will handle the live facilitated sessions if they come to that (subtle questions exposing the folly of the program, responses that leave adequate doubt about me being either earnest or sarcastic, or direct push back on the faulty premises), but I would love to say:

    “I firmly believe (and my truth is all that counts if I am not to be denied my very existence) that this session is deeply racist and bigoted, but I do not blame you, dear facilitator, since I am quite sure that you are unconscious of your inherent biases, because you have not taken my class yet, on the inherent unconscious bias of unconscious bias training!  I will be sure to send you an invitation (for mandatory attendance), because I aspire to be a race grifter just like you!  Oh, and if you deny it, or not accept it grovelingly enough, then it must be proof of your guilt and fragility.” 

    • #53
  24. Juliana Member
    Juliana
    @Juliana

    I attended a virtual workshop today presented by a professor from Harvard. Although you could drive a Mac truck through the gaps he did not discuss (criminal behavior in relation to expected lifespan, for example), he did make the point that 95% of the equity training that is going on in corporations and educational institutions today will not do anything to remove biases. He admitted to being prejudiced and said everyone is prejudiced in some way based on their personal experiences. He said the only way to truly address racism is to work with each other on an individual level – to get to know each other in order to change some stereotypes. It did appear that he meant all races needed to work with each other, that it was not just a one way street. I was rather impressed that his presentation was not what I expected – especially from Harvard. 

    • #54
  25. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    Juliana (View Comment):
    He said the only way to truly address racism is to work with each other on an individual level – to get to know each other in order to change some stereotypes.

    He is exactly right. Human beings work these things out by working with each other. Those who do not catch on to clues when they are being obnoxious will not likely get any better at it from taking one of these workshops, and will often find that their own choices in life are more limited if they can’t learn to treat other people decently.  No guarantees, of course. Some jerks do quite well for themselves.  But being a jerk is still is a limiting factor.

    • #55
  26. TBA Coolidge
    TBA
    @RobtGilsdorf

    Juliana (View Comment):

    I attended a virtual workshop today presented by a professor from Harvard. Although you could drive a Mac truck through the gaps he did not discuss (criminal behavior in relation to expected lifespan, for example), he did make the point that 95% of the equity training that is going on in corporations and educational institutions today will not do anything to remove biases. He admitted to being prejudiced and said everyone is prejudiced in some way based on their personal experiences. He said the only way to truly address racism is to work with each other on an individual level – to get to know each other in order to change some stereotypes. It did appear that he meant all races needed to work with each other, that it was not just a one way street. I was rather impressed that his presentation was not what I expected – especially from Harvard.

    Misapprehending people by group is built into us. Liberals know all kinds of things about conservatives that are simply not accurate. The reverse is probably true as well. 

    The thing is, it is impossible for anyone to know ‘black people’ or ‘white people’ or any vast aggregate of human. Imagining all black people as victims of whatever institutional racism is supposed to be is just another way to ‘them-ify’ an aggregate. 

    iow, your Harvard guy makes a lot of sense to me. 

    • #56
  27. The Reticulator Member
    The Reticulator
    @TheReticulator

    TBA (View Comment):

    The thing is, it is impossible for anyone to know ‘black people’ or ‘white people’ or any vast aggregate of human. Imagining all black people as victims of whatever institutional racism is supposed to be is just another way to ‘them-ify’ an aggregate.

    Good point and well said.

    • #57
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