Cultural Competence in Sports Medicine

Cultural Competence in Sports Medicine is a must-have resource for any health care professional who works with athletes and patients of diverse cultural backgrounds. This unique text stresses the importance of recognizing different cultural attitudes, beliefs, and expectations so that athletic trainers and other health care professionals can modify their professional behavior accordingly to reflect their sensitivity to their patients’ needs, ultimately resulting in a comfortable and positive health care experience for patients.

The need to provide behaviorally competent health care to diverse populations prompted the National Athletic Trainers’ Association to identify cultural awareness as a key competency for all certified athletic trainers, including entry-level athletic trainers. Cultural Competence in Sports Medicine supports this objective by defining the concept, explaining why it is important, and using examples specific to athletic trainers and other health professionals working with athletes. The text covers the various cultural competence theories and models, including the process of cultural competence in the delivery of health care services, which serves as a foundational model for the remainder of the text. Because readers will need to understand their own biases before they can begin to change them, the text offers information on analyzing and assessing one’s own cultural attitudes and behaviors. Once readers are prepared with that cultural awareness, the text builds cultural knowledge about various racial and ethnic groups, including the origin of culture, common sensitivities and conditions, possible beliefs about illness and preventive healing practices, and providing symptom management and treatments.

Cultural Competence in Sports Medicine also presents strategies for engaging in cross-cultural interactions. Readers will learn these factors:

• Cultural considerations for each stage in the physical assessment process, including taking an oral history, inspecting, observing, and palpating

• How to work through an interpreter to foster clear communication with athletes

• The conventional dress code generally expected by different cultures to cultivate a professional atmosphere

• Appropriate palpation techniques across cultures so athletes are comfortable with the type and degree of physical contact

• The differences in acceptable interaction between male and female clients

Activities throughout the text provide opportunities for students to apply their developing cultural awareness and related skills. Role-playing exercises help readers realize and understand their own cultural viewpoints, while thought-provoking “What Would You Do?” sections detail a cultural encounter and encourage the reader to reflect on the situation either individually or through in-class discussion. Each chapter also includes chapter objectives, interviews with professionals, review questions, and key terms to help students comprehend and retain the information presented. Instructors will find an online instructor guide and test package to help them plan and deliver their courses.

Cultural Competence in Sports Medicine explores methods of assessinng the overall cultural competence of a health care organization. Whether part of an institutional mission or a personal objective to become more behaviorally competent when working with athletes or patients of diverse cultures, this text will serve as a guide. Readers will begin to understand their own cultural viewpoints and those of others while learning the tools to apply their new cultural awareness in offering more culturally sensitive and supportive health care to their athletes and patients.

Lorin A. Cartwright, MS, ATC, is assistant principal and athletic director at Pioneer High School in Ann Arbor, Michigan. As a teacher and the school's head athletic trainer for more than 15 years, she has extensive experience with all aspects of instruction of student athletic trainers. She was an adjunct professor in athletic training at the University of Michigan for three years. Cartwright earned a bachelor's degree in physical education from Grand Valley State College and a master's degree in education from the University of Michigan.

Cartwright is the author of three books, including the popular Preparing for the Athletic Trainers' Certification Exam, and was the first woman and first high school athletic trainer to serve as the president of the Great Lakes Athletic Trainers' Association. She served as the investigative chair on the Ethics Committee for the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA) from 1998 to 2004 and was also an active member of NATA’s National Membership Committee and the National Review Committee for Misconduct from 1988 through 1992. Highly regarded in her field, she was the recipient of the Great Lakes Athletic Trainers’ Association Outstanding Educator Award in 2010, the Athletic Trainer Award from the Great Lakes Athletic Trainers' Association in 2002, the Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award from the Michigan Athletic Trainers' Society in 1999, and the Distinguished Service Award from the National Athletic Trainers' Association in 1998.

Her travels have taken her to Alaska, Italy, Nova Scotia, Sweden, Finland, and the Caribbean. Cartwright has been the athletic trainer for the amateur and semipro summer basketball league and the Michigan men’s basketball all-star team, and she worked at the Olympic Trials for wrestling.

Cartwright resides in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where she enjoys woodworking, creating stained glass, and gardening in her free time.

René Revis Shingles, PhD, ATC, is director and associate professor in the department of physical education and sport at Central Michigan University in Mt. Pleasant. She received her doctorate from Michigan State University. Her doctoral studies in sport sociology and program design and evaluation provide the theoretical framework for her continued research in cultural competence. Revis Shingles has presented extensively on cultural competence and diversity and has over 20 years of experience in teaching at the collegiate level.

Revis Shingles is a member of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association’s (NATA) Ethnic Diversity Advisory Council, serving as chair from 1995 until 2000. She also served on the NATA Education Council Executive Committee from 2004 through 2009. In addition to her athletic training experience, her work with these committees provided firsthand knowledge of diversity and educational issues in athletic training. In 2010, she received the Great Lakes Athletic Trainers’ Association Outstanding Educator Award and the NATA’s Most Distinguished Athletic Trainer Award.

As an athletic trainer and researcher, she has traveled to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Japan, Mexico, Aruba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and throughout the Caribbean. Revis Shingles also served as an athletic trainer for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games.

She and her husband, Stan, reside in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, where she enjoys spending time with family and friends, reading, and traveling.

[This] is a pioneering textbook in sports medicine that should spur much-needed conversation and advance learning.
—Doody’s Book Review