Cultural Insensitivity In Healthcare

In any healthcare field, communication is essential to assure that patients understand what is going on, and so they can effectively communicate what they need their doctors to know about their health. In healthcare, doctors and nurses will often see many people of different ethnicities and cultures, and they need to have some sort of cultures sensitivity in order to communicate with their patients on a level they will better understand. In order for them to communicate effectively, they will need to acknowledge that a patient may have a different culture with a different language and beliefs, which can act as barriers to effective communication. Without proper communication methods, doctors and nurses may be unable to provide the proper healthcare

It has 5 different components that serve as its framework: normative cultural values, language issues, folk illnesses, patient/parent beliefs, and provider practices (Flores, 2000). One specific aspect of this model that would have been helpful to the Lees and their situation would have been the part of the model that states that physicians should acknowledge the cultural remedies suggested by the patient, then “suggest alternatives to harmful folk remedies, accommodate (nonjudgmentally) the folk illness beliefs and practices, and integrate the use of harmless folk remedies into the treatment plan (Flores, pg. 22).” Had this been implemented at MCMC, then the Lee’s may have had an easier time dealing with nurses and doctors when discussing the treatment of their daughter. This model was first developed after examining healthcare workers and their interactions with Latino patients (Flores, 2000), but when comparing it to other ethnic groups, such as the Hmong, it is clear that it could work across cultures, and would be helpful to healthcare works in cultural sensitivity

These bias’s lead certain ethnic groups to feel as if they are not getting the same amount of respect and support from their healthcare providers as other people, which can be seen throughout Anne Fadiman’s novel in the way the Lee’s are treated as if they were second class citizens (Fadiman, 1997). In an article that discusses this topic of bias, the idea of unconscious biases are explained to be things that develop based on one’s culture (as well as race and ethnicity) and lack of exposure to other cultures and understandings. It is said in this article that this leads to a lack of cultural sensitivity because one cannot easily understand the differences in a culture that is not their own (Burgess, et al., 2004). This article suggests that “Structural changes [in the healthcare industry] are critical so that providers who are motivated to go beyond social categories and stereotypes have sufficient resources to do so (Burgess, et al., pg. 1158).” These suggested changes would include new training methods on cultural sensitivity and biases, as well as a shift in how workers deal with different ethnic groups and how they can develop the skills to be more conscious of unconscious biases. This solution could result in more self-conscious medial staff that could learn how to look