Heritage Assessment and Healthcare Essay

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,

In The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care (2009), the author of the book, T.R. Reid travels to industrialized democracies to discuss the different methods of health care delivery system used in these developed countries and compare them to the health care system of the United States. According to T.R. Reid (2009), “the thesis of this book is that we can find cost-effective ways to cover every American by borrowing ideas from foreign models of health care” (Reid, 2009, p. 11). This thesis illustrates that the American health care system can manage health care costs effectively and provide care to all by using some of the successful health care delivery models of foreign nations. The purpose of this book analysis is to discuss the four different health care models presented in this book and provide my prioritization or ranking of these models. This analysis also aims to investigate a case known as the Nikki White case described in this book and discuss the lessons learned from it. Furthermore, this analysis is going to provide my remarks on the, “An Apple a Day” comment relative to the Public Health Model. Lastly, in this book analysis, I will share my conclusion on the basic premise of the book along with my take away messages that I will remember into my future as a Public Health professional.

The Hispanic culture has different values, beliefs, and traditions. Family is highly value. Family is a close-knit group and the most important social group to gather in any events or special days. The Hispanic “family unit” includes not only parents and children but also grandparents and extended family. Individuals within the family have moral responsibilities to help other members of the family experiencing financial problems, unemployment, health conditions and any other life issues. They show the importance placed upon relationship within their family extending a hand in good times and bad. Respeto y dignidad (respect and dignity) are other important values of the Hispanic culture. Children’s are taught to avoid confrontations with parents and older persons, and to be obedient and respectful. The Hispanics believe that the father is head of the family and the mother is to take care of home. Naming children after grandparents and parents is fairly common. A well-known tradition is the celebration of a fifteen year old girl called Quincenera. Hispanics culture and traditions are based around celebrating and spending time with love ones.

Many years ago, an epileptic Hmong girl named Lia Lee entered a permanent vegetative state due to cross-cultural misunderstanding between her parents and her doctors. An author named Anne Fadiman documented this case and tried to untangle what exactly went wrong with the situation. Two key players in her narrative were Neil Ernst and Peggy Philp, the main doctors on Lia’s case. As Fadiman describes, “Neil and Peggy liked the Hmong, too, but they did not love them… [W]henever a patient crossed the compliance line, thus sabotaging their ability to be optimally effective doctors, cultural diversity ceased being a delicious spice and became a disagreeable obstacle.” (Fadiman 265) At first glance, this statement seems to implicate Neil and Peggy as morally blameworthy for a failure to be culturally sensitive enough. However, upon further inspection of the rest of the book, it becomes clear that Neil and Peggy’s failure to be more culturally sensitive to their Hmong patients was caused by structural issues in the American biomedical system. To prove this point, this paper will first present a background to Lia’s case, then discuss possibilities for assigning blame to Neil and Peggy, then show evidence for the structural issues in American biomedicine, before finally concluding.

Latinos and Hispanics have a long history here in the United States of America. The term “Hispanic” is most often used by the government, which is what will be used through the rest of this document. Hispanics are the fastest growing group in the United States and their numbers will continue to increase as years go by. Mexicans are the largest subgroup of Hispanics making up 66% of the population while the other 34% includes Central and South Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans, and other Hispanic origins. California, Texas, and Florida have the highest populations of Hispanics. In regards to health insurance, Hispanics have the highest rates of uninsured in the United States.

| Family ties among Hispanics are very strong, and this is what I mostly admire about their race. Hispanic families often come together for different occasions (birthdays, holidays, baptisms, etc.) and they teach their children the importance of good manners, and respect for their elders. A good quality to have today.

The Hispanic community in the largest minority in the USA and the fastest growing, it is also one with a high incidence of preventable diseases such as Diabetes, periodontitis, colorectal cancer and HIV. Obesity and teen age pregnancy are significantly more prevalent in Hispanic/Latino population as well. Rate of vaccination is also below that of the majority of the population. Addressing their health care makes good public health and economic sense.

Reid’s goal is not only to compare health care, but to discover solutions for America within foreign models. Like many Americans, Reid is quite dissatisfied with the U.S. health care system. Even more, he is perplexed by how an industrialized, wealthy nation like the United States could rate so poorly in comparison to other nations. “With the help from many scholars and the Kaiser Family Foundation I traveled the world searching for a prescription to fix our country’s seriously ailing health care system” (8). While simultaneously seeking care for an injured shoulder, Reid is able to personally experience various health care systems, seeking elements that could help America.

Health promotion can be looked out differently within each ethnic group and can most definitely influence how one manages his/her own health. Within the AI/AN population, a lot of home remedies passed down from generation to generation exist, so seeking out traditional medicine isn’t really a main source of healing. The American Indian/Alaska Native resident may have a holistic view in which people community, nature and spirituality are interconnected and interrelated. This perspective views physical, spiritual, mental and emotional health in unity, instead of indiscrete categories. Sickness may be viewed as a result of disharmony between the

Health care has been inclined by several significant events that have occurred throughout history. Change is the primary focus on what has shaped health care and continues to by pain of improvement, and to focus on the importance of our population and their needs. Though there are several influences politics, finance, culture, technology, health trends, and religions they all play a major contribution towards shaping the healthcare field. (Shi & Singh, 2012) Throughout this paper we will present significant events that have changed and affected health care today, give details about how the historical evolution of health care

The Heritage Assessment Tool can be used as as a reliable tool to assess, health maintenance, protection and restoration of individual cultural beliefs. This evaluation helps meet the needs of different patient populations to provide quality holistic care. The purpose of this paper is to explore the Hispanic, Native American, Chinese, and the author’s own personal

When clinically assessing patients in care settings, it is paramount for health professionals to elicit pertinent information that could be crucial for delivery of care. This is particularly important in the United States because the increasing diversity in racial and ethnic composition of the population has presented cultural challenges that care givers must navigate to provide culturally competent service. Cultural competence during delivery of care requires sensitivity to the cultural, social, and linguistic needs of patients (Betancourt, Green, Carrillo, 2002). As a consequence, care providers need cultural assessment tools that will enable them

Third exhibit is how the government plays a huge role in public health. Prior to the great depression dated from 1929-41. United states citizens did not agree that the federal government should have any part with citizen’s health. But during the Great Depression the U.S citizens became desperate since then the governments role in the public health has expanded. Since that accrued two sections from the constitution were taken as allowing the federal government to intervene in the nation’s health. The first is the ability to tax people to provide for the “general welfare.” This allows for the collection of money to be used in support of health programs. Second, the federal government has the ability to regulate commerce. The government can implement policies that limit the personal and property rights of individuals or businesses. This authority allows the rules and regulations of restaurants, sewage and water companies, product and drug safety, and other businesses that sell

An individual has their own ethnic, religious and cultural background and they share the thoughts among families or the same ethnic background and take over the tradition and culture from generation to generation. Looking at someone’s heritage, it includes traditional health methods how a particular ethnic background people to maintain health, protect health and restore health. I would like to discuss about health traditions; health maintenance, health protection and health restoration among with three different culture; Philippine, Hispanic and Japanese.

The issue becomes contentious as to where the line is drawn. While there are numerous cases of obvious villains of history (i.e. Hendrik Verwoerd) whose memory should not be celebrated, there are many more cases of differing peoples vying for recognition and pride, and it is difficult to insure that renaming remains an act to promote national heritage and not to laud one group over the other.