The Essentials For Good Care

The United States is a country that is the home to many people who are from various cultures, races and religion. Differences in people can cause misunderstanding and conflicts. It therefore becomes clear why all healthcare professionals should become culturally competent by having awareness, knowledge and skills for their patient whose beliefs and values are different. If health care professions are not culturally competent, then they will fail their patients in numerous ways. The book titled The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman portray how healthcare professionals lack cultural competency when working with the Lee family.

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

Health care providers must keep the basic concepts of treating all of their patients with respect, compassion, and honesty no matter what the culture they may have. If the caregiver has a enhanced understanding of the persons cultural beliefs

In today’s society, it is very important for the healthcare professional to be educated about the culture of their patients. It can be seen that the number of patients who are Muslim are increasing throughout the healthcare system. It is challenging for healthcare workers to care for the needs of Muslim patients when they don’t understand their cultural beliefs. Muslims don’t necessarily have the same health beliefs, outcomes, or priorities that their providers have, therefore making it more difficult to come to a final healthcare decision (Al-Oraibi, 2009.) “This intercultural gap in understanding between clients and providers may result in poor care services and low levels of satisfaction” (Al-Oraibi, 2009.) Muslims are

Many people have seen the increase of immigrants coming to the United States. “Census 2000 measured a U.S. population of 281.4 million, including 1.2 million who reported and Arab ancestry” (de la Cruz and Brittingham, 2000). Arab Americans are those people who speak or are descendents of Arabic-speaking populations. As doctors and caregivers continue to provide care to those that speak English, communication between them is easy. But when this simple task is changed when there is a patient from a different culture, it produces challenges that both parties have to overcome. Doctors and caregivers have to increase their cultural awareness and sensitivity so that there is a good

“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

When culturally competent nurses interact with other cultures, they observe how members of the culture communicate, watching for verbal and non-verbal cues. Eye contact is important to identify. For some cultures direct eye contact is not polite. Touch for some cultures is prohibited. If needed, nurses should explain the reason for touching the patient before proceeding. In some cultures males cannot be caregivers of females. Silence doesn’t always mean miscommunication or patient apathy. For some cultures is a positive non-verbal cue or a sign of respect or agreement. Space and distance is very important when providing care. Patients can place themselves close or far from the nurse based on their culture. Healthcare beliefs also vary from cultures. Some cultures are compliant with cares while others may not be very cooperative. Based on these observations, nurses can plan their plan of care based on the patient’s needs (Maier-Lorentz, 2008 Journal Of Cultural Diversity). Nurses also need to observe pain non-verbal cues, food preferences, family arrangements and general norms and interactions.

Health in all cultures is an important aspect of life. A person’s cultural background, religion and/or beliefs, greatly influences a person’s health and their response to medical care (Spector, 2004). These diverse cultures guide decisions made in daily life; what food eaten, living arrangements made, medications taken and medical advice listened to. A nurse must be knowledgeable and respectful of these diverse cultures and understand their importance when providing care. This understanding helps to build a strong nurse/patient relationship, increasing patient compliance, which ensures positive outcomes are met. Patients who are satisfied

The purpose of this paper is to educate the student nurse on the importance of cultural variations related to care of patients using the Giger and Davidhizar’s Transcultural Assessment Model (GDTAM). There is a lot of variation among cultures and it is my goal throughout this paper to provide a perspective that student nurses will consider when coming across a new patient. At this stage of our education it is not realistic to assume we will be able to identify every difference among all the cultures we may come across. It is, however, realistic to be able to understand why differences between cultures need to be taken into consideration in order to

Cultural differences impact nurse’s ability to provide competent care for transcultural patients. Furthermore, the lack of education on different cultural factors such as language, beliefs, and values, can challenge some nurse’s ability to provide adequate care.Also, as a nurse it is important to understand the barriers to moral courage. If a nurse has knowledge on all these aspects they will be able to provide quality care. In the article “Nursing Care of Iraqi Patients” Goodman (2015), wrote about a study revealing cultural factors that impacted military nurse’s ability to provide competent care for the Iraqi patients. According to Goodman(2015), the study found that nurses who had lack of an education on Iraq’s culture

“Culture has an impact on people’s health, healing well belief systems, perceived causes of illness and disease, behaviors of seeking health care, and attitudes towards health care providers” (Edelman, Mandel & Berry, 2014, p. 26). Providing culturally competent care to the Somali population requires understanding of their health patterns and beliefs, which can be discordant with the western medical model. This lack of understanding is often presents challenges for Somali patients and their providers. Interviews of Somali women conducted by Pavlish, Noor & Brandt (2010), generally reflected a lack of preventative medicine, different expectations for treatment from their providers, and overall disappointment with their client/provider interactions. Preventative medicine is not a concept that Somalis are familiar with and therefore, many times Somalis use the E.R. for routine care when they are sick. One explanation for lack of experience

Western health care professionals and Middle Eastern are often clashed as both parties have different views of mutual misunderstanding on culturally values and communication styles. Ethnically, Middle Easterners may be vary, but they share common values and behaviour including attitudes toward illness. Middle Easterners’ family may be very demanding people to obtain client’s sickness. Moreover, they have conflicting beliefs about planning and differing patterns of communicating grave diagnoses. Therefore, individual approach and continuous care by the same health care professional can help to bridge the gap between both parties. In addition, using cultural interpreters often can reduce some intense cultural

Many people come through the doors of health care facilities for numerous reasons. They come, sometimes scared of the news they are about to receive or with extra baggage like financial issues, personal issues etc. These things problems cannot be separated from the physical problems that plague human beings. Doctors and health care providers must wear numerous hats in order to provide a complete health care. This is a growing issue, that health care providers are not completely treating their patients. Human beings are very complex, so the care that is to be provided to treat them, should also work together to treat all the aspects of human beings. This is an apparent problem, especially in the older generation. Many older Americans are not getting adequate health care, sometimes they are neglected because of the way society views the elderly (Thewlis, 1946, p. 27). Society looks at the elderly in a very negative way, which results in poor health care. These older individuals have carried with them a life full of baggage and personal problems. Many times they fill health care facilities because as these individuals ' age, more and more thing go wrong and the cost of treatment starts to take a toll on the elderly patients and their families (Yelon, Luchette, 2014, p. 23). Some times, their psychological pains can also impact their physical pain. Many elderly patients feel lonely, depressed,

A patient’s cultural background is important in many ways. First, their cultural background affects the type of care they receive. Some patients choose spiritual healing over traditional Western medicine. Other cultures choose not to seek hospitalization when ill and are cared for at home. A patient must be looked at, holistic nursing views the patient this way. Cultural background is important to honor and respect if a patient is being treated in the hospital. Diversity is prevalent in the nursing field. Not only do nurses come from different cultures and backgrounds, we are constantly caring for many patients whose cultural beliefs differ from ours and this should not stop us from providing the best care possible.

The role and definition of family can vary from one culture to another. Generally speaking, the culture in the United States places a lot of emphasis on individuality and personal freedom. In many cultures, the family unit has a very strict and defined hierarchy. Often the Father is seen as the head of the household and is responsible for much of the decision making. This can include decisions concerning the health care of a family member. It could also result in reluctance for the head of the family to place himself in a position of relying on others for care, a perceived position of weakness. In many cultures, the family goes beyond the nuclear family, and extends to the community, friends and neighbors. These are strongly held beliefs, and we must refrain from judging them as right or wrong based on our own culture. Rather, weneed to find ways to work within the framework of the family structure of the patient. ( Falvo, pp.186-187)