Belief Systems and Many Cultures

The following encounters happen in the day-to-day interactions with clients.  Not only can they cause more harm, but they are also missed opportunities for learning:

“Our field services team as well as our solicitor at times have struggled with religious sacrifice, due to lack of training and understanding of the law when it comes to religion. In recent months, I would have officers come in and say Atlanta Police weren’t doing their job in pursuing felony charges for religious sacrifice at the request of our solicitor; and I would have to show our officers the law for them to understand that Atlanta Police were right in not proceeding.”
– Anonymous

Culture can be found in a multitude of groups of people, thoughts, and shared identities. Culture is a word that has such far-reaching meanings such as work culture, ethnic culture, and racial culture…but don’t forget about deaf culture, academic culture, shelter culture, corporate culture, etc.

Each of these community cultures can come with different barriers as well. While we will not dive into them here. Please respect that these exist and take the time to learn about the cultures you intersect with (or would like to).

What is the culture in the veterinary-related space that you are in or with? Does it change depending on which team members are present? If you own the understanding of cultures affecting your work, you can effectively interact.