Cultural competence for the voice and airway surgeon

SummaryMaintaining the sanctity of the physician–patient relationship grows more difficult as the healthcare industry moves to adopt business models of productivity. Recent interest, however, has helped refocus our attention on the importance of understanding our patients’ backgrounds, and their wishes, in order to create mutually favorable and medically appropriate outcomes. In the business community, emotional intelligence has emerged as a powerful index to predict one's ability to create customer satisfaction. This article explores how this way of understanding a patient can and should impact the care of individuals who present to a laryngologist, and its principles can be extrapolated to spur discussion about the management of respiratory disorders. The author demonstrates how cultural competence and a participatory decision making style can assist caregivers in designing a treatment strategy for patients.