Commentary on “Extending Cultural Competence Through Systems Change

Sunita Mutha, MD, FACP, is an associate professor in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Department of Medicine, at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and program director at the UCSF Center for the Health Professions. Her scholarly work focuses on educational and organizational approaches to addressing health disparities and improving the quality of care for diverse populations. She directs the LEADing Organizational Change: Advancing Quality through Culturally Responsive Care project, in partnership with the California Safety Net Institute. Dr. Mutha is the lead author of the nationally distributed curriculum, Toward Culturally Competent Care: A Toolbox for Teaching Communication Strategies. She has expertise in designing and presenting cultural competency training programs for clinicians and frontline staff and is a frequent speaker on the topics of health disparities, language access and cross-cultural care.

Dr. Mutha graduated from Albany Medical College and completed her residency and chief residency at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, followed by a fellowship in the Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholars program at Stanford University. Prior to joining UCSF, she was a faculty member at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri where she received a Distinguished Service Teaching Award. She is a fellow of the American College of Physicians.