Book Review: Nancy Waxler-Morrison, Joan M. Anderson, Elizabeth Richardson, & Natalie A. Chambers (Eds.), Cross-Cultural Caring (2nd ed): A Handbook for Health Professionals. Vancouver, BC: University of British Columbia Press, 2005. 365 pp. Cloth: $95.00 (CDN), ISBN: 0774812559

As many societies become more culturally diverse, it is increasingly recognized that culture has a significant influence on how people experience health and illness, affecting their health beliefs, expectations, behaviors, and medical outcomes. Research findings suggest that culturally sensitive care improves health outcomes (Schilder et al., 2001). Health care professional education requirements call for the promotion of cultural competency (CC) among clinicians. CC education generally concentrates on (1) the promotion of clinician cultural self-awareness; (2) the dissemination of information about various cultural and ethnic communities, while guarding against stereotyping; and (3) cross-cultural instruction to improve communication with persons from different cultural groups (Tervalon & Murray-Garcia, 1998). Cross-Cultural Caring (2005) contributes to these initiatives. This second edition follows its original publication 15 years earlier. The editors bring together multiple disciplinary perspectives from the social sciences and the health professions, drawing on a number of additional authors and contributors. The introductory chapter recognizes the multiple (sometimes incongruent) “cultures of medicine” involved in health care within multicultural settings. The editors indicate that this book should serve as a basic introduction to the social and cultural backgrounds of selected newcomer groups in Canada. The book addresses groups from seven broad regions of descent: Central America, China, Cambodia and Laos, Iran, Japan, South Asia, and Vietnam. Aboriginal and the predominant Angloand French-Canadian communities have been excluded because they do not share a migration experience. The editors acknowledge criticisms that the first edition had the potential for fueling stereotyping. One can see how this form of regional grouping can be simplistically misinterpreted. The editors have explicitly tried to counter this concern in this 2005 edition. The introductory chapter highlights that each chapter should be regarded as a reference to help orient health professionals, providing clues about common problems they can anticipate. It is strongly emphasized and illustrated throughout the book that each cultural and ethnic community is heterogeneous. The authors call on health professionals to be sensitized to this fact, as well as to reflect upon their own cultural identity, in order to maximize clinicians’ self-awareness of their own cultural explanatory outlooks and how these shape their mis/understanding of patients’ accounts. Each chapter is structured similarly, using largely consistent headings that address central themes such as: migration to Canada, language, religion, family structure, mental health, patient-professional relationship, hospitalization, childbirth, and death and dying. These chapters present a wealth of information. They sensitize the reader to a wide range of social, political, and cultural issues that characterize the experiences of persons from each region. For example, Mayan refugees from Guatemala are frequently confronted with Spanish interpreters Transcultural Psychiatry 46(3)