Comparison of Another Culture

In the United States, the healthcare system for the most part is controlled by private hands; however, federal, city government, county, and state also own certain facilities. Hospitals give the greater part of inpatient care with limited outpatient care. There are various different specialty clinics for surgery, heart, children, bone, cancer, obstetric and gynecologic around the country. Almost every

There are many cultural differences between the United States and France. Some of these are simply social and others are cultural. Hofstede’s Value Dimensions can be used to highlight the differences between the cultures. Individualism vs collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity/femininity, power distance, and long-term vs short-term orientation are all characteristics that differ between France and the United States.

The traditional Chinese treatment of acupuncture is an affective alternative medicine that has been around for thousands of years. Acupuncture is one of the most researched and documented alternative medicines around (Acupuncture). Although a vast majority of people believe Western medicine is the only cure to sickness, many people benefit from acupuncture everyday. Most people disregard the ancient art all together without giving it a chance because are scared of the needles it involves. Also, since no accurate scientific explanation of how and why it works has been found, people shy away from it. The healing powers of the body are taken to a whole different level with this alternative medicine.

An increasing number of medical schools are now offering courses in alternative medicine for their students, and some hospitals already have alternative medicine departments. The availability of healers and doctors practicing holistic medicine has also increased in recent years, and more and more people are educating themselves in these new fields. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that between 65 and 80 percent of the world’s population (about 3 billion people) rely on traditional medicine as their primary form of health care.

American greetings are generally informal. Men and women greet each other with a smile and a firm handshake (United States). Close friends and relatives will welcome each other with a hug or a

The alternative medicine of Korean culture is called, Korean Oriental medicine (KOM). “It refers to the medicine native to Korea developed over a period of nearly two thousand years after being grafted with traditional Chinese medicine. It had been called traditional Korean medicine (TKM) since 1986 until recently. Before that, it was simply referred to as traditional Oriental medicine” (Republic of Korea, 2012). Chinese medicine was first introduced to Korea, during the Three Kingdoms period (57 B.C. – 668). It was followed by Goryeo Dynasty (918-1392) and the Joseon Dynasty (1392 – 1910) and developed its own unique nature as Korean Oriental Medicine. This traditional medicine perceives human body as a small universe and is based on the concept of “yin” and “yang”. According to this concept, it sees every object in the universe in two opposing forces, “such as the sun and moon, summer and winter, north and south, and male and female. It studies o-haeng, or the five phases or elements comprising the universe: geum (metal and rock), mok (wood), su (water), hwa (fire), and to (earth). It also studies the process of yuk-gi, or the Six Atmospheric Influences, in the realm of natural science, which are pung (wind), han (cold), yeol (heat), hwa (fire), seup (humidity), and jo (dryness). Western medicine focuses on the human body’s internal organs and is based on anatomy and cytology. It tends to find the cause of illness

Asians believe in traditional remedies for health restoration, such as acupuncture, cupping, massage, and herbal remedies (Edelman & Mandle, 2010). The author’s family was interviewed for the Asian Heritage Assessment. The author’s family subscribes to use of daily exercise, acupuncture, massage, and some herbal remedies. The author’s mother wears jade, and balances the components of her meals, whereas her children are Americanized and do not. The author’s mother uses ginger and various other roots and herbs, whereas her children use roots like ginger for flavoring.

In America and other countries of similar and contrasting cultures, we like to be right, we like to be on top, and we want to be recognized for both respectively. Competition is an underlying theme in so much of what we do in our daily lives. Whether it’s getting a better grade on a test than your friend, winning a football game or even speeding up faster than the car next to you when the light turns green. Competition, whether we like it or not, surrounds us and we participate in it willingly. We all want to stand on that podium and receive the gold medal, for then we are better than someone else and we can look down upon him or her because we have achieved something they have not. This competition and trying to be better than the person

Everybody in Japan gets to have insurance. They either buy it themselves or they pay for it through their job. People who can't afford it at all gets picked up by the government having them paying it for them. Insurance a month for a family costs about 200 dollars. For a family in the US, it'd cost them more than a thousand a month and if you can't pay for it then you don't get it. You can go anywhere you want for medical help you don't have to see a primary and then get transfered to another doctor regarding their specialty. The deductible they have to pay is around only 10 dollars while in the US it can be 100 . The costs of everything are kept low by having the prices negotiated every two years. They only have one payment system and the doctors can't change what they want regarding it (Sick Around the World, 2008). With this being said, it can be seen

When comparing cultures, one must form a definition of what culture is. Culture can be easily defined as the social behavior and normality’s found in human societies. It can also be easily made up of a composed arrangement of educated conduct and thought designs. Culture is a sorted out framework since it includes many parts. Throughout the world, there are many cultures that are both very different and also very similar. "Culture encompasses religion, food, what we wear, how we wear it, our language, marriage, music, what we believe is right or wrong, how we sit at table, how we greet visitors, how we behave and one million other things." (Cristina De Rossi.)

Accordingly, when providing care for KAs, healthcare providers must take the patient’s cultural values into consideration. Maintaining a healthy body, is associated with being harmonious, or balanced, with the body and soul. Therefore, when a person is sick, it is attributed to misfortune or bad luck (Children’s Mercy, 2010, p. 25). As a result, alternative medicine, also termed Chinese medicine, is widely used in the Korean culture. Chinese medicine can be traced back to traditional healing from Korea, China, Japan, and other parts of Southeast Asia. In addition, “traditional Chinese medicine is said to rest on several pillars, the important parts of maintaining and restoring health: acupuncture, traditional Chinese herbs, diet and nutrition, exercise, stress reduction,

All countries in the world are unique and differ greatly from one another. Even though, they have many differences, they still have many things in common. When one thinks of Japan and India, not many similarities come to mind. They may come up with similarities such as, Japan and India are both Asian countries and both have roots in Buddhism. But, actually they share several more cultural similarities. The Japanese culture and the Indian culture are similar in that they both believe in the importance of a joint family system, education and gender roles, but they

The complex structure and foreign nature of Tibetan medicine makes it difficult to relate its practices to Western medicine, making it difficult to determine the clinical efficacy of Eastern medical practice. Several clinical analysis studies have recently been performed in order to determine the efficacy of the “holistic” practices of Eastern cultures. Whether the studies show Eastern or Western practices to be more effective, I believe that the most effective treatment should be a combination of both practices.

Traditional Chinese medicine, or TCM, is one of the oldest systems of medicine to exist among humans, and it is extremely prominent to this day. According to legend, the system has been in use since the third millennium BCE. The views of such an old system differ greatly from those found in modern western medicine. Perhaps most prominent is the fact that TCM focuses more on the patient than the illness. The system considers the human to be a microcosm of the universe, implying that the body is affected by the traditional Taoist forces of yin and yang, the five elements, and Qi in the same way the cosmos are. Each of these forces act upon the “zang fu,” or organ system, directly influencing a patient’s health. Healers use qigong to assist in the restoration of stability in the body. Achieving balance, both internally and externally, is the most important aspect of healing in TCM.

In the Asian culture, health is defined as the harmonious balance between conditions of cold (yang) and hot (yin). Asians believe that an illness occurs as a result of an upset of the harmonious balance, implying that diseases can only be treated if that balance is restored back to its normal state. As a result, most traditional medical interventions in the Asian culture entail the search for the cause of the imbalance within the patient’s mental and physical composition. Asians believe that hot and cold diseases should be treated by cold and hot medicines respectively to restore the normal balanced state of the patient. For instance, penicillin, which causes rashes and diarrhea, is considered a hot treatment, while linden tea, which is served cold, is regarded as a cold medicine that is suitable for treating cold ailment. Although not all Asians subscribe to the hot and cold philosophy, it is important for a physician to consider the belief when handling such patients (Muto, Nakahara, & Nam, 2010).