Cultural Safety

You are required to consider cultural safety as part of your annual CPD. Cultural safety practice is the ongoing critical reflection of health practitioner knowledge, skills, attitudes, practising behaviours and power differentials in delivering safe, accessible and responsive healthcare free of racism. (The National Schemes’ Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Cultural Safety Strategy 2020-2025)

Good medical practice: a code of conduct for doctors in Australia defines cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples specifically for their status as First Nations Peoples. Culturally safe and respectful practice is also important for all communities. Australia is a culturally and linguistically diverse nation.

“Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have inhabited and cared for the land as the first peoples of Australia for millennia, and their diverse histories and cultures have uniquely shaped our nation. Aboriginal health means not just the physical wellbeing of an individual but refers to the social, emotional and cultural wellbeing of the whole community in which each individual is able to achieve their full potential as a human being, thereby bringing about the total wellbeing of their community. It is a whole-of-life view and includes the cyclical concept of life-death-life.
Understanding and acknowledging factors such as colonisation and its impact on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples’ health, helps inform care. In particular, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples bear the burden of gross social and health inequity. It is for these reasons that cultural safety in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health needs to be specifically considered. 4.7.2 Cultural safety for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander People.”

Example activities:

Title	Description	Educational Activity	Reviewing Performance	Measuring Outcomes
CICM Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health and Cultural Safety Online Learning Resource	Online Learning Resource Package on CICM Member Portal	✓
CICM / FICM joint webinar: Indigenous Health and Intensive Care	Webinar	✓
CICM Indigenous Health Committee e-newsletter article: Unconscious Bias – is it time to change?	Article	✓
Slice of LIME seminars	Online seminars hosted by The Leaders in Indigenous Medical Education	✓
‘Navigating Communication’	Video series designed to assist cultural awareness and understanding within aboriginal health delivery through practical advice from experts.	✓
Learning and education modules on understanding bias in health care	Online modules focusing on understanding and addressing implicit bias, Te Tiriti o Waitangi, colonisation, and racism	✓
Yuwahn Wupin	‘Yuwahn Wupin’ translates to ‘culturally able’. Online modules covering cultural respect, cultural safety and quality, reflection, communication and advocacy	✓
Incidence and outcomes of sepsis in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and non-Indigenous residents of New South Wales: population-based cohort study	Journal article: Critical Care and Resuscitation	✓
SBS / NITV’s BLA.C.K. Medicine podcast	Podcast on indigenous health, hosted by Dr. Mikayla Couch	✓
Reflect on the cultural diversity in your local area	Self-directed		✓
Include whether the patient identified as Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Māori or Pasifika on M&M meeting templates for discussion	Mortality and Morbidity meeting			✓
Review of critical incident of a patient who identifies as Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Māori or Pasifika	Self-directed or group			✓
Case review and interpretation of findings where a patient identifies as Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Māori or Pasifika	Case review			✓
Performing the role as assess for WBAs and ITAs where the patient identifies as Aboriginal, Torres Strait Islander, Māori or Pasifika	Peer review of performance		✓