Healthcare disparities in quality represent one of the greatest challenges in achieving uniformly high-quality care (1). Research reporting disparities in surgical outcomes are abundant (2-6). The cornerstone of delivering high quality healthcare is ensuring optimal access for all patients. A relative lack of access to surgical services may be a contributing factor to disparities in surgical outcomes.Access is "the timely use of personal health services to achieve the best possible outcomes" (7). Utilization of services, the process of entering and staying in the system, and the actual quality of care received are all involved. Disparities in access arise when the system disproportionately under-performs for a specific group of patients relative to the historically

Surgeons identified the need to provide better cross-cultural care and proposed tenets for training. Based on these findings, we suggest the development and dissemination of a cultural dexterity training program that will provide surgeons with specific knowledge and skills to care for patients from diverse sociocultural backgrounds.

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