Department: Cultural Diversity
Manager: Sergey Germanovich
Phone: (315) 734-3582
Fax: (315) 235-7491
E-mail: sgermanovich@stemc.org
Office Hours: 8am-4:30pm
Address: 2209 Genesee St.
Utica, NY 13501
Cultural Diversity
St. Elizabeth Medical Center and its community medical sites are located within very unique and diverse communities. Utica has been recognized as the fourth largest per capita area for resettlement of refugees.
Culture can be defined as “cultural and linguistic competence as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that come together in a system, agency, or among professionals that enables effective work in cross-cultural situations. “Culture” refers to integrated patterns of human behavior that include the language, thoughts, communications, actions, customs, beliefs, values, and institutions of racial, ethnic, religious, or social groups. “Competence” implies having the capacity to function effectively as an individual and an organization within the context of the cultural beliefs, behaviors, and needs presented by consumers and their communities. (Based on Cross, Bazron, Dennis, & Issacs, 1989).
Therefore, the Cultural Diversity program at the Medical Center provides its staff with competency skills and knowledge in order to work effectively with individuals and their families from culturally and lingiustically diverse backgrounds, for the continuity of providing quality healthcare services and reducing health disparities to a diverse population of patients from Anglo-Saxons to refugees from Africa, Cambodia, Bosnia, Burma, and Nepal and more.
