Updated MCC 360 embraces cultural safety and humility

In September 2024, MCC 360 clients began migration to an updated core program with a lens to cultural safety and humility. Cultural safety refers to respectful engagement recognizing and addressing power imbalances inherent in health care systems. Cultural humility is a process of self-reflection and self-critique to understand personal and systemic biases and humbly acknowledge oneself as a learner in understanding the experience of others.

The MCC 360 program has always been heavily grounded in the CanMEDS framework. By using the CanMEDS Family Medicine Indigenous Health Supplement (2020) and the British Columbia-based First Nations Health Authority’s Anti-Racism, Cultural Safety & Humility Framework (2021) as primary documents, the MCC has carefully reevaluated and revised MCC 360’s survey language, structure and items.

Patients in Canada increasingly expect their physicians, regardless of where they went to medical school, to demonstrate cultural competence. Integrating cultural safety and humility survey questions into the MCC 360 program reflects this expectation and supports physicians to be actively engaged in self-reflection. A focus group held with members of the National Consortium for Indigenous Medical Education was pivotal to informing these survey changes and ensuring revisions were on the right track.

MCC 360’s cultural safety and humility survey questions are framed as positive statements, and are unambiguous and non-threatening, with simple prompts. The questions are designed to be applicable across cultures. Each physician’s action plan, developed following the delivery of their MCC 360 report and with the support of a trained coach, is expected to address cultural safety and humility components.

Physicians who incorporate the cultural safety and humility framework into their practice demonstrate a willingness to accept patient feedback and are better equipped to practice inclusive health care and provide optimal care. Their patients experience increasingly positive health outcomes, and increased confidence to be involved in decision making about their own health.

MCC 360’s revisions aim to support an ultimate goal: for physicians to provide a practice environment that is free of racism and discrimination, where patients, co-workers, colleagues, and the physicians themselves feel safe when receiving or providing care.

The MCC is grateful to partners and leaders working in the cultural safety and humility space for their guidance and support in modernizing MCC 360. We humbly acknowledge that we are learning, and we look forward to continued program maintenance based on feedback and best practices as our understanding of cultural safety and humility continues to evolve.

MCC 360 is a national multi-source feedback program designed for physicians practising in Canada to develop skills in their roles as communicators, collaborators, and professionals. The program focuses on the physician, helping them better understand their practice, including their strengths and areas for improvement by collecting feedback from colleagues, co-workers, and patients.

Learn more about MCC 360.