A Patient Educating: A Cultural Analysis

“Health is influenced by culture and beliefs” (NRS-429V, 2011, p. 1). In order for the nurse to properly care for the patient, she must know and understand the patient’s culture. “Cultural care is a comprehensive model that includes the assessment of a client’s cultural needs, beliefs, and health care practices” (NRS-429V, 2011, p. 1). It is not enough to just know where the patient lives or where he came from. The nurse must embrace the concept of cultural competence and cultural awareness. This requires not only the awareness of the cultural beliefs and values of their patients, but also

Being a patient is stressful as it is, and as nurses we should elevate them of this stress and empower them to look pass their illness. In the process of empowerment, information that is shared by the patient must remain confidential unless if we must report it by law. As nurses we must educate patients and their support system on diagnosis and treatment types. Keeping in mind of individual from different cultures that have different treatment methods than the Western ways, as nurses we must be culturally competent. I have educated myself on different cultures, and I have the belief that culture plays a significant role in the treatment of illness. Continuously reeducating myself on different cultures is vital because new things are learned about culture every day. Rather than believing in stereotypes, nurses must take the time to know the patient. Building a relationship with the patient will lead to effective treatment plans and the patient

Cultural competency is not an instinctive gift and must be taught to providers. At present, three basic models exist for teaching providers how to offer culturally-based care. The first model emphasizes the dissemination of knowledge and information to the individual, with the stress that awareness breeds more cultural competence. Students learn about “definitions about culture and related concepts, social determinants of health, and variations in disease incidence and prevalence” (Kripalni et al 2006). In contrast, an attitude-based curricula promote sensitivity through self-exploration about the individual’s own biases. Finally, “skill-building educational programs (the cross-cultural approach) focus on learning

Heritage effects every decision and action in a person's life. In the medical field, this includes how willing or unwilling a patient is to follow a physician's protocol. Because obtaining the proper care is so important for the patient's overall well-being, it is vital that physicians educate themselves on the culture of their patients and how to properly offer care and advice. Should a physician be unable to obtain the necessary information, many patients will entirely fail to follow proper health protocols and their condition may worsen.

In today's society, the role of nurses has also expanded into one more area: cultural advocacy. What this means is that nurses must not see patients as a homogeneous group of ill individuals. Rather, they must see patients as humans who each come with their own rich history and culture. Being a cultural advocate means that patients are attended to in a manner that does not trivialize their customs and their views on how their care should be delivered. Religious and ethnic customs are respected by the nurse who fosters cultural advocacy because he or she believes that these things are part of what makes up the entirety of a patient, and is therefore a crucial aspect to address in providing holistic

Culture includes beliefs, values, habits, traditions, attitude and language shared by a same racial group living in a particular geographical area. It is dynamic and transferred from generation to generation (Kiefer, C., 2007). Every community has its own perception about their health, illness and treatment. The health care providers should understand these differences to avoid misinterpretation for providing

In the context of cultural competence, the health care providers and the relative services that delivered within the system play a critical role to meet the cultural and language requirements of consumers and their next of kin. They also have a responsibility to present the best available evidence in the context of medicine to assure that the patient could receive the appropriate treatment under certain circumstances based on their cultural needs to achieve the optimum outcome (Love & Waitoki, 2007; Dreachslin,

I realize the importance for nurses and other healthcare professionals be educated on the different global cultures, as America is a global melting pot. Smith and Parker (2015) state the culture care theory “desires to discover unknown or little-known knowledge about cultures and their core values, beliefs, and needs” (p. 304). Within this theory fifteen orientational definitions have been defined. These definitions allow the nurse to break down the patient and nurse interaction regarding each person’s cultural differences, diversities, environment, worldview, and social structure. However, a disconnect often occurs between the professional (etic) and generic (emic) care definition. The professional care definition takes what we learned throughout our years of education to improve a patient’s health. The generic care definition uses the patient’s indigenous, traditional, and local folk knowledge to provide adequate assistance and support for healing. With the appropriate combination of the orientational definitions, patient’s will receive optimal

However, this point of view holistically embraces patients’ health and illness beliefs as related to cultures and traditions. The understanding of my own and others’ cultural beliefs and perspectives will improve the ability to propose solutions for personal conflicts of interest that can be applied to a plan of care for a specific population

What is your approach to participating in the medical program and studying in 2017? Has your philosophy or strategies changed over the past year? Explain

Due to such challenges, some people have sought to provide cross-cultural solutions. One such person is Arthur Kleinman, a medical anthropologist, psychiatrist, and chair of the department of social medicine at Harvard Medical School who developed a set of eight questions that were “designed to elicit a patient’s ‘explanatory model’” (260). In other words, the Eight Questions are a set of questions to ask a patient and/or the patient’s family member(s) and/or twiv neeb (I will call these last two “relevant relaters”), and by hir answers, a doctor can better understand how ze sees hir illness and how ze sees healing. Specifically, the questions ask what the answerer calls the problem, what ze thinks has caused the problem, why ze thinks it started when it did, what ze thinks the sickness does and how it works, the sickness’s severity, whether it will have a short or long course, what kind of treatment ze thinks the patient should receive, what the most important results ze hopes the patient receives from this treatment are, what the chief problems the sickness has caused are, and what ze fears most about the sickness. I think questions like these are a good start for cross-cultural understanding by the American medical community because they are open-ended questions, thus the way the questions are answered will give more information. The answers will be in the patient (or relevant relater)’s own words, which will allow more insight into hir personality, values, and personal

Earlier this week, I took the liberty of interviewing a few close friends of mine in order to receive an insight on their different cultural backgrounds. Being a nurse, I work in a very diverse community so the results I received were very normal. The first family I interviewed was Filipino and I was very interested to find out how they dealt with health and illness, culturally speaking. During our interview, I quickly learned that in the Philippines many people believe that certain illnesses are believed to have a natural origin. This did not come as abnormal. The Philippine tradition has been influenced by Indians, Chinese, Arabians, Spanish, Mexicans and American belief systems (Poces & Poces, 2004). In addition, it is a common belief that illness is caused by spiritual as well as moral imbalances. In order to combat these diseases, their custom called for the use of three types of healing: faith healing through prayer, herbal medicines and massaging the body. Additionally, food is an important aspect as well. “Every night, I would prepare garlic and onion soup for my grandparents in order to make sure their blood pressure was under control” (M. Sampaga, personal communication, August 16, 2011). As you can see, with different cultures comes different customs and there is no exception for health traditions.

Each culture, belief and heritage contrasts from person to person. Individuals have their “independent health behaviors which are affected by their religion and illness beliefs” (Jarvis, 2016). The definition of both terms health and illness various in all cultures, including how the situation is directed. But, “In the Transcultural Nursing Theory, nurses have a responsibility to understand the role of culture in the health of the patient” (“Cultural Awareness and Influences on Health”, n.d.). The origin of these individuals depends on their personal “health and illness beliefs, illness causation, health maintenance, health protection, health restoration, and traditional healers” (Jarvis, 2016). Without exception, anyone employed in hospitals should have knowledge of these respects before the physical examination. “Each health care organization should ensure that patients receive from all staff members effect, understandable and respectful care in a manner compatible with their culture, health, beliefs, and in their language” (Jarvis 2016).

Our cultures and norms play an enormous role in our lives. Throughout life, everyone has been guided by a belief, which comprises of confidence and faith within a person or something. We come to accept a custom that, something exists and therefore we make it apart of our daily lives. In societies, an entire community or a group of people may share certain beliefs. These common ideas shared between people become a norm or culture that governs the daily socio-active movements of people. In health, culture has a presence and a huge influence on people and their perspective of what is considered healthy. Cultures have systems of beliefs in health by which it justifies the cause of an illness, how to treat the illness and who treats the

Culture impacts every facet of life and is defined as beliefs, values and attitudes shared and perpetuated by members of a social group. Culture is a complex whole that also includes shared traditions, customs and language, and norms that must be learned from families and social communities (Thomas et al., 2004). It also affects the entire way in which health is framed in meaning and response; thus, awareness of these cultural variations can only serve to enable health practitioners to provide adequate health care to those who are in need.