Heredity, Culture, And Environment

The United States is a nation of immigrants; they have virtually every culture of the world within its borders. Due to this reason, there must be a certain level of cultural competency within its people. A comparison and contrast will be made to compare the Hispanic cultural views on medical care to the American cultural views toward medical care. I chose to explore Hispanic culture because of my background but most importantly due to its richness of unique characteristics. I will provide an overview on how heredity, culture, and environment can influence behavior in the medical office. Furthermore, I will express my opinion about why a medical assistant,

Introduction: Cultures, social, ethnicity, English proficiency are factors that my significantly affect the quality of healthcare. Patient’s perspective, values, beliefs and behavior are highly influenced by the sociocultural background pf the patient (1-5). These factors can affect dealing with patient’s symptoms, seeking care, pain toleration, care adherence, preventive measure, and health care expectations.

Many health care professionals think that if patients are just treated with respect, then cultural issues will be avoided. That statement is not the correct.

Both articles express how important it is to be culturally self-aware and in touch with your personal beliefs, views, and morals. If you aren’t aware of what your cultural beliefs are you won’t be able to provide you patients with the cultural care and respect that they require in their recovery to become healthy again. In addition, the two articles (Newson 2009, Byrson 2012) both talk about how important it is to be open minded with people who may have a different opinions and views on certain things. If you aren’t open to treating you patients in the cultural way that they want to be treated, your patient will feel disrespected and unimportant. Therefore, their health will suffer because of your incompetence to accommodate their cultural needs. A nurse needs to be culturally self-aware, they need to know what their own personal views are first so they can understand that not everyone’s views will be the same. This means they need to be capable of being open and accepting to other people’s cultural wants and needs. By being these two things you will be able to provide people of all cultures with the respect and treatment they

Culture is a strong determinant of people's views of the very nature and meaning of

Adapting to different cultural beliefs and practices requires flexibility and a respect for others view points. Cultural competence means to really listen to the patient, to find out and learn about the patient's beliefs of health and illness. To provide culturally appropriate care we need to know and to understand culturally influenced health behaviors. However, becoming culturally competent is a much more daunting task. Culture (and ethnicity) often influences a patient’s perceptions of health and illness. Therefore, if healthcare providers appear insensitive to cultural diversity, their actions may negatively affect the quality of the healthcare that they provide.

The United States is known for its melting pot of cultures, which creates one of the most contentious issues in the medical world which is the clash of cultures. The book we read “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” is a great example of how a miss communication and struggle between cultures which lead to a very dismal end. The difference in beliefs cause constant issues in communication, even though both want what is best.

Through her research, Leininger established an outline to further explain the importance of culturally competent care and the challenges presented throughout societies and healthcare institutions. The most obvious need for cultural sensitivity is the ongoing immigration throughout the world. As more people from different parts of the world enter into one area, different cultures will be present. The people that migrate to a new region or country will have the expectation that respect will be shown for their beliefs, particularly in the healthcare setting. This includes the use of technological advances in medicine. Some cultures may not understand or trust the delivery of care that is based on new technology (Andrews & Boyle, 2016).

Cultural diversity in the medical field is, at times, greatly hindered because of religious beliefs, language barriers, and the hierarchies of diverse cultures and these have the propensity to affect the continuity of care for the patients. “Every person has different aspects that constitute their identities, according to how they see themselves….This means that seeing an individual in terms of

Cultural diversity has different meaning to each and every one. Some of us considering cultural diversity to be acquired where for the others it’s a skill that they have to learn. It’s very important that the health care providers are knowledgeable and sensitive to cultural differences because they are the ones to deal with the patients of different background on a daily basis. Being cultural savvy will help them to give the best patient care. For that reason, health care workers must be especially aware that addressing cultural diversity goes above the values, beliefs, practices and customs. An outstanding medical professional has a good manner and makes patients feel comfortable and at ease during exams and treatments. Cultural knowledge is the skill to respond appropriately to people of different cultures, ages, races, religions, sexual orientations, abilities, and ethnicities, and embrace on the way that will allow a person to feel respected and valued. The article "Diversity & Cultural Competency in Health Care Settings" discusses diversity in health care environment, "A health care professional who has learned cultural competence engages in assistive, supportive, facilitative, or enabling acts that are tailor-made to fit with individual, group, or institutional, cultural values, beliefs, and life ways in order to provide quality health care. In other words, they demonstrate the attitudes and behaviors that enable them to effectively work with individuals with diverse

What cultural considerations must you think about? (Did the group describe cultural considerations relevant to treating the particular patient?) (3 points)

In any case, providing competent care to a patient of a different culture must first start with an understanding of the culture itself (Potter & Perry, 2011). Culture is

Human growth and development is an incredibly complex process, influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. At certain times and for certain developments, genetic influences dominate, whereas at other times, environmental influences are more powerful which emphasizes the fact that genetic and environmental forces are always working together (Sigelman and Rider, 2009).

There are many cultures out in the world today that practice beliefs different than those in the United States. America is based off Western Culture and traditional medicine practices which focus on preventative and curative medicine. Most cultures around the world practice folk medicine, which focus more on the person as a whole with remedies and ceremonies rather than medicine and treatment. Even though each one believes in a different practice, all medical professionals should have the knowledge and awareness of each culture’s health beliefs to properly treat their patients in a respectful and kind

Every culture has its own views of health care, diseases, and medical interventions. The way people of a given culture view health care affects how they handle themselves when they fall ill. For instance, the Asian culture believes that illnesses are caused by supernatural phenomena, which should be diagnosed and treated by means of spiritual healing or traditional herbs. Physicians and other medical practitioners should try to understand the cultural beliefs of their patients to handle them appropriately.