What is cultural safety, and how is it different to cultural competency? What does practising in a culturally safe manner look like for pathologists and senior scientists who aren't in patient-facing roles?

In this episode of The Pathology Report, host and anatomical pathologist A/Prof Diane Kenwright is joined by haematology Trainee Dr TeApatu McCrea and clinical microbiologist Dr Harsha Samarasekara from Nepean Hospital to explore these questions and reflect on their own experiences.

They cover:

  • How to distinguish cultural safety and distinguishing it from cultural competence, exploring how cultural safety focuses on putting the patient at the centre.
  • Prioritising cultural safety in the laboratory setting, and how personal experiences, language, food, dress, religion and cultural identity influence workplace interactions and wellbeing.
  • How pathologists, despite often working behind the scenes, play a key role in fostering environments where patient trust and respect are prioritised.
  • Experiences of addressing culturally unsafe behaviour in the workplace and highlighting the importance of challenging culturally unsafe practices through respectful, non-confrontational approaches.
  • The need to address unconscious racial profiling in pathology education and why expanding cultural safety training needs to go beyond a box-ticking exercise.


A key takeaway from this episode is that cultural safety is an ongoing collective responsibility, requiring openness to change, mutual respect and meaningful inclusion of all cultures within healthcare environments.

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The Pathology Report is produced by the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia and is part of the Talking HealthTech Podcast Network.

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