Five Days At Memorial

Indeed, nurses play an indispensable role in connecting patients with a new culture of care and serving as a voice for the socially marginalized. My contribution to the mission of the Nurse Corps Scholarship program in providing care to underserved communities will entail great knowledge base of different medical conditions with the ability to know my patients, their family situations, their cultural identities, social situations, the barriers and challenges they face in dealing with their

In the piece “Invasions” by Perri Klass the narrator addresses issues that result when doctors learn of the secrets of patients and how they feel the need to invaded patients’ privacy.

In the health care business, there are certain standards and laws that have been put in place to protect our patients and their personal health information. When a health care facility fails to protect their patient’s confidential information, the US Government may get involved and facilities may be forced to pay huge sums of money in fines, and risk damaging their reputation.

The hospital is seen as generally seen as a place of sickness, disease and a place where people are going through some of the most challenging hardships of their lives. As they endure these hardships, there is a significant amount of physical and mental stressed place upon the patient and subsequently placed upon their loved ones. Despite how unappealing a hospital may seem, they are a pertinent part of society focused on improving the overall health of the population, the World Health Organization describes health as “a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity (World Health Organization, 2014).” Being admitted to the hospital for any of amount of time can be stressful and challenging. This paper will explore the challenges of an older adult woman under the pseudonym, Mrs. A and her family regarding her transition from living in her home in Port Coquitlam to having an unexpected long term stay at the hospital.

Reading the book Josie’s Story, was an emotional but, powerful experience. I really enjoyed the perspective it gave. The intimate details in the story give the reader a feeling and an idea of what Sorrel King went through as well as the rest of her family. It is not just a story you can read and then not question aspects of your own care as a nurse, nor the healthcare system itself. One important phrase that resonates with me and I hope to never hear in my nursing practice is when King (2010) asserts “She died because you did not listen to me” (p. 65). The book details Sorrel King’s quest to improve healthcare by making it safer. It is an important book that gives insight and brings up the importance of patient safety, communication in healthcare, and the culture of healthcare. It also gives value and credence to the role

The Waiting Room is a 2012 documentary film and social media project directed by Peter Nicks that follows the life and times of patients, doctors, and staff at Highland Hospital , a safety-net hospital in Oakland, California. The project includes a blog which features stories and conversations from the waiting room as well as behind-the-scenes information about the project. Frequent video updates from the project are posted on the blog. These videos examine what life is like in an American public hospital caring for a community of largely uninsured patients. Many hospitals and health systems provide charity care for uninsured individuals when they require acute care, but the most forward thinking ones are also concerned with caring for this

The staff could also have done something different so as not to have to use restraints on the patient. A sitter could possible have been

“Between the ages of eight months and four and a half years, Lia Lee was admitted to MCMC seventeen times and made more than a hundred outpatient visits to the emergency room and to the pediatric clinic at the Family Practice Center.” The Lee family was a regular visitor at the hospital but it did not make thing between the Lee family and the hospital any easier. There was many issues between Lia’s family and the Merced hospital staff. Many of these issues steamed from many different areas of things. Between the Lee’s a Hmong family and the American doctors at Merced Hospital there were several cultural differences on what both parties wanted. Cultural difference was not the only thing they did not see eye to eye on there was also a huge language barrier between the Lee family and the workers at Merced hospital.

Many live under the assumption that those who come to the United States want to become Americanized and assimilate to the melting pot our culture has formed into. This is the populations ethnocentric belief, which is the belief that the ways of one’s culture are superior to the ways of a different culture, that wants others to melt into the western ways. In Ann Faidman’s The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Faidman fails to completely remain objective when demonstrating how cross-cultural misunderstandings create issues in the healthcare field, specifically between the Hmong and western cultures that created dire consequences between the Lee’s and their American doctors. Faidman uses her connections with the Hmong and the doctors who cared for them in order to disclose the different views, beliefs and practices the Hmong and Western cultures practiced. With her attempt to be culturally relative to the situation, Faidman discusses the series of events and reasons as to why the Lee’s faced the fate that they did and how it parallels to the ethnocentrism in the health care system.

In a perfect world, race, ethnicity and culture would have no negative effect on the medical care we receive, yet problems do arise and it affects the quality of care the patient receives. Language barrier, poor socioeconomic status, and poor health literacy also contribute to health care disparity. For Lia, it was more than her skin color, it was all of the above, her parents did not speak English and they were illiterate. They had trouble understanding the American healthcare system, had trouble or little interest in adjusting to or understanding the American culture. They didn’t work, which in addition to cross cultural misunderstanding, helped contribute to animosity between the Hmong and the host community, because some in the Merced area did not like or appreciate the fact that some Hmong did not work and relied on welfare to make ends meet. All these factors, contributed to the poor quality of

As a nurse aide working in a hospital, there are multiple instances where privilege and differences in power affect the way I, and those around me, engage with patients. For the privilege memo, I wish to discuss how my own personal benefits of being a white person affect the patients I work with as well as other minorities. For the community profile, I plan to take a deeper look into the black community, if possible specifically Somalian Americans. There are numerous new Somalian Americans in the Fargo community that I have encountered before both in and out of the health care systems. Delving into their experiences with health care in the America will aide my attempt to educate myself about minorities in health care environments both nationally and

A vital foundation for a high-quality care delivery is an efficacious communication between the patient and the healthcare providers (Gengler & Jarrell, 2015). Fadiman (1997) recounted the conflict between a refugee family from Laos and a small hospital in California over the care of Lia Lee, a Hmong girl with severe epilepsy, in her book The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. Despite both sides wanting the best care for Lia, the lack of cross-cultural communication between her Hmong family and her American doctors, lead to her tragedy (Fadiman, 1997). Awareness regarding the disparities in culture and language of our patient with ours and how to address them should be taken into account when providing healthcare since the life of a

Fadiman confronts another interviewing barrier when she works with the medical staff of Merced County Medical Center, the hospital where Lia Lee was taken and treated many times. Fadiman constantly reviewed Lia’s medical records, as well as consulted and interviewed many of the physicians and nurses who worked with Lia and her family. Fadiman had to alter her interviewing style and the way in which she planned the interviews while interviewing the staff of Merced County Medical Center. These individuals did not require an interpreter because they were native English speakers. Because of this, Fadiman had an easier time communicating with the interviewees, but had to remember the culture they were used to. The resident doctors and nurses Fadiman was discussing Lia’s case with worked at the Family Practice Residency, which receives most of its payment through government programs like Medi-Cal or Medicare (Fadiman 1997:24). Because of this, most patients this staff was used to seeing were low-income, and

As we have seen, the government impacted the Lee family by not having the proper programs implemented in time to save her life but the life of Lia Lee has had an enormous impact on the government’s implementation of cross-cultural programs, interpreter training, and even a shaman program. Although the government changed the life of the Lees their story had a more permanent effect on the government. This is a story of miscommunication causing a tragedy, but in the long run institutionalizing a brand new program to prevent this from happening again. It changed the way that American hospitals deal with people of other cultures now. This story is rich with the fascinating Hmong culture and the American medical system. What one could learn from this book is enormous and could help change the way American’s view other

Patient’s in the NICU are considered to be very tiny and fragile and immunocompromised due to their immature organ systems which can lead to many dangerous medical problems. Patricia W. Stone states “maintaining a safe environment reflects a level of compassion and vigilance for patient welfare that is as important as any other aspect of competent health care” (Stone, 2008). The patient’s safety should always be a top concerned for a nurse because in a health care facility the purpose is to heal the patient and get them on the road to recovery. Nurses must learn from the errors of the past and use their knowledge to improve the quality of nursing to the patients to ensure if errors do happen again that the use of evidence-based practices are put into place to improve their outcomes. According to Higher Quality of Care and Patient Safety, “Registered Nurses (RNs) are instrumental in achieving multiple care goals, including promoting infant health and clinical stability, maintaining the integrity and cleanliness of central catheters, and preparing families for their role in infant care and successful transition it home” (Lake, 2016). Nurses are reasonable for the education of the families of the patients to ensure that the best quality of care for the patient is maintained outside the hospital to ensure the best medical outcome for the infants.