Crossing Borders 4 Health Upskilling Panel Night

This event is going to include doctors who are involved in refugee and asylum seeker healthcare coming to UWA to participate in a panel night. Overall, the night will also have a networkign aspect where we will provide dinner to the ticket holders following the panel discussion. The general purpose is to get medical students more comfortable with practicing trauma aware and culturall safe care. The panelists will then be able to have a Q&A session where students can engage in the conversation directly. Find below the type of discussion points that we are planning on bringing up from our end.

The questions covered by the panel will involve the following: 

Background information

• What do the labels of refugee or asylum seeker actually mean for someone when they walk into a healthcare setting in Perth?

• How does trauma informed care apply to medical practice?

Intro

• What does culturally safe and trauma-informed healthcare mean to you, and why is it particularly important in refugee and migrant health?

Trauma informed care

• How can we provide trauma-informed care without making assumptions that every refugee or asylum seeker has experienced trauma?

Follow up: What are some practical things we can do or say to give patients more control and psychological safety?

Communication

• What are your biggest tips for medical students working with interpreters, and what are some common mistakes you see?

• How do you build trust when there may be language barriers or previous negative experiences with healthcare?

• What should a medical student do when a patient's cultural beliefs or practices appear to conflict with the medical advice we're giving?

• How do we distinguish between respecting cultural differences and recognising situations where there may be a genuine health or safety concern?

• What assumptions do healthcare professionals commonly make about refugees and migrants that you wish they would stop making?

Pediatric context

• How does trauma-informed and culturally safe care change when you're treating a child and communicating with their parents or caregivers?

• How do you balance the child's autonomy with the parents' cultural beliefs?

• How do you approach developmental concerns when there may be differences in language, culture or previous educational exposure?

• What should students be particularly mindful of when assessing refugee children?

Local context

• What are the biggest barriers refugee and migrant communities face accessing healthcare in WA?

Final question

• If you could give every future healthcare professional one piece of advice about working with refugee and migrant communities, what would it be?