Western Culture Essay

1769 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Chinese culture on death

Extended Essay Western Culture “Western culture, Western civilization (the modern culture of western Europe and North America)” (Princeton University). The definition of western culture is broad and can be applied to many different aspects of life. In the world of health care, western culture prevails when discussing end of life situations. The main focus of western communication in these situations is keeping trust between patients directly and communicating the situation with them in a clear but respectful manner (Hawryluck). According to the National Health Service in the United Kingdom most health and social care staff have received some basic, generic communication skills training for end of life communication. However seeing as end of life situations are one of the most intense and demanding situation of a health care professionals career to deal with, “most believe they would benefit from further training to address the challenging demands of conversations with people approaching the end of life” (NHS). One of the major factors in these discussions is the age of the patient in question. Since it’s not usual for a family member to die before they are old and considered elderly, different situations are in need of different responses. Especially in the case of a child, teenage, or any other death for people under the age of 60. The dialogue between the patient and doctor or any other health care official is greatly influenced if the patient is a minor or an adult. Conversation structure and even the person the professional is likely to have a conversation with might change. In the western world society tends to be split up into 3 major age groups; children and young adults (under 18 years of age), adults (19-60 years of age)... ... middle of paper ... ...e upon a painful treatment the child is in no position to tell them otherwise. “According to a traditional Confucian interpretation, a child who agrees to a parent’s refusal of treatment would be violating the principle of filial piety” (Bowman). This makes the children very inactive in their own situation’s outcome. Therefore children and doctors do not have a very direct relationship and the communication is left to be between the older people of the patient’s family and the doctor resulting in a more technically based and advanced language. Adults Adults are in eastern cultures the ones who keep family going. They have the task of disciplining their kids and running family businesses. However in the case of an end of life situation the whole family comes together to discuss how to handle it. Just like treating end of life situations with children the adult is

Show More
Related

  • Mrs. Boswell’s Dilemma

    1185 Words  | 3 Pages

    Charalambous, A. (2010). Good communication in end of life care. Journal of Community Nursing, 24(6), 12-14. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

    Read More

  • social workers role in end of life care

    539 Words  | 2 Pages

    Thanks in part to the scientific and technological advances of todays’ society, enhanced medicinal treatment options are helping people battle illnesses and diseases and live longer than ever before. Despite these advances, however, many people with life threatening illnesses have needs and concerns that are unidentified and therefore unmet at the end of life, notes Arnold, Artin, Griffith, Person and Graham (2006, p. 62). They further noted that when these needs and concerns remain unmet, due in part to the failure of providers to correctly evaluate these needs, as well as the patients’ reluctance to discuss them (p. 63, as originally noted by Heaven & Maguire, 1997), a patient’s quality of life may be adversely affected. According to Bosma et al. (2010, p. 84), “Many generalist social work skills regarding counseling, family systems, community resources, and psychosocial assessments are relevant to working with patients and families with terminal illness”, thereby placing social workers in the distinctive position of being able to support and assist clients with end of life decisions and care planning needs. In fact, they further noted that at some point, “most social work practitioners will encounter adults, children, and families who are facing progressive life limiting illness, dying, death, or bereavement” (p. 79).

    Read More

  • Cultural Revolution Essay

    1183 Words  | 3 Pages

    Chinese Revolution is about making the entire country into Communists and killing each and one the people who hates Mao Tse-Tung. Mao Tse-Tung is the leader of China at this time who believes in equality and everyone should have the same rights. The Red Guards is a military group in which includes a group of children that eliminates the Chinese population due to hatred for Mao. If any of these events happen to our generation, most youth are smart enough to know that Mao is a bad leader and killing innocent people by the case of bitterness for Mao is wrong. The Chinese youth got swept up in the Cultural Revolution by Mao because the youth were easy to persuade into doing something. To expand this idea further, the Chinese youth weren’t old enough, not on this specific age, to realize whether Mao’s actions were virtuous or inaccurate. On the other hand, they thought that working for Mao and joining the Red Guards will help their country out, but they never knew the truth behind Mao’s plans. The truth about the Cultural Revolution was to kill anybody that gets in the way of Mao’s plans and destroying all the old buildings so that it would be replaced with new buildings or reconstruct the old buildings to become brand new again. In addition, the Chinese youth had no idea that joining the Red Guards will give a highly chance of getting killed. In other words, the adults were smarter than the youth because joining the Red Guards means the opposite of helping the country out. Mao just made them think that joining will help their country, even though it was the other way around like someone apologizing to their neighbor in which manipulating their minds that they’re now cool, but they were still rude to them afterwards. To repeat this, t...

    Read More

  • Nurse's Role In Pediatric Death And Dying

    1211 Words  | 3 Pages

    The nurse becomes the confidant, the guide through the darkness, a source of comfort for those experiencing the trauma of losing a child. To successfully fulfill these nursing roles, in addition to roles that must be fulfilled to meet other patient’s needs, one must acknowledge their own definition of death and educate themselves on cultural and societal norms associated with death and dying. It is important to identify one’s own definition of death and dying but also understand that one’s preference does not define the death experience for others. The individuality and uniqueness of each death experience means that one definition of death may be hard for one to accomplish. It is important to maintain an open mind, nonjudgmental spirit, and impartiality for the cultures and practices of others surrounding death and dying. A culturally competent nurse is not only responsible for acknowledging the cultural norms of others but also respecting and educating themselves about the death rituals of their patient’s culture and providing the family with as many resources to safely and effectively fulfill their cultural practices. Education is empowering for the nurse who is navigating the death and dying process. Education often supplements ones credibility with the dying patient and their family which can ease overall anxiety and further promote ones role as a patient advocate and provider of

    Read More

  • Final Gifts a Book by Maggie Callahan and Patrician Kelly

    883 Words  | 2 Pages

    As a nursing student, I have had some exposure to death during patient care. My first encounter with direct death was witnessing a patient after attempted resuscitation efforts die in the emergency department. As I observed others reactions, I noticed I was the only one who seemed fazed by the preceding events and the end result, although I didn’t show it outwardly. During my Aging and End of life clinical rotation, I have been exposed to a near death experience with a family and I had the rewarding experience of forming a relationship with the patient’s wife during the short hour I was in their home. From reading the accounts in this book, it confirmed to me the importance of catering to the needs of the family and the dying as an important issue to address as they are critical to overall care.

    Read More

  • Cultural Imperialism Essay

    2847 Words  | 6 Pages

    To understand cultural imperialism is to understand the diaspora of man across the globe along with the socially darwinistic interactions that follow. Modern homo-sapiens left the plains of Africa a mere sixty-thousand years ago. Today mankind populates six continents hundreds of islands with a seemingly endless ethnic diversity. But what comes of a culture that is antiquated on a global scale that comes to interact with a more advanced civilization. The Americas prior to 1492 where home to millions of indigenous people with wide spread and diverse cultures speaking over two-thousand languages. With western colonization of the Americas came disease and enslavement of the indigenous peoples. The enslavement, genocide and oppression the natives faced under the Europeans lasted for over five hundred years. Even the birth of civilized nations did little to stop the oppression as the United States military famously marched millions of natives to reserves in Oklahoma in what became known as the trail of tears. The innate nature of mankind is rather troublesome and largely counter-productive. We are extremely social animals yet instead of

    Read More

  • Cross Cultural World History Essay

    801 Words  | 2 Pages

    For world history to genuinely work on a global scale what are the elements of cross-cultural world history?

    Read More

  • Western Civilization Essay

    1390 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Western culture has evolved over a span of several years with various civilizations specializing in specific aspects of life or nature. In essence, Western civilization dates back to the BCE periods when Ancient Greece, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Rome reigned. Each of the Western civilizations came with a clear lineage that portrayed such attributes as property rights, free market economy, competition, personal freedoms, and innovation (Perry, 2013). Besides, the western civilizations came at different periods with some of the attributes evolving or remaining unchanged throughout the lineage. However, the non-western civilizations contributed towards such attributes to a given extent, primarily because of the interactions among

    Read More

  • Hospice and Palliative Care: Nursing Roles

    967 Words  | 2 Pages

    The end-of-life nurse’s primary objective is to provide comfort and compassion to patients and their families during an extremely difficult time. They must satisfy all “physical, psychological, social, cultural and spiritual needs” of the patient and their family. (Wu & Volker, 2012) The nurse involves their patient in care planning, as well as educating them about the options available. They must follow the wishes of the patient and their family, as provided in the patient’s advance directive if there is one available. It is i...

    Read More

  • Death And Dying Essay

    1240 Words  | 3 Pages

    The subject of death and dying is a common occurrence in the health care field. There are many factors involved in the care of a dying patient and various phases the patient, loved ones and even the healthcare professional may go through. There are many controversies in health care related to death, however much of it roots from peoples’ attitudes towards it. Everyone handles death differently; each person has a right to their own opinions and coping mechanisms. Health care professionals are very important during death related situations; as they are a great source of support for a patient and their loved ones. It is essential that health care professionals give ethical, legal and honest care to their patients, regardless of the situation.

    Read More

  • Western Imperialism Essay

    1466 Words  | 3 Pages

    During the 19th century, European countries were implementing a new form of imperialism on many areas. Through this process these European countries gained a lot of power. Some of the areas that were affected from imperialism form the European countries was Asia especially was China and Japan. Asia was a huge area for imperialism, but both China and Asia were very appealing areas to colonize. Both countries reacted differently towards western imperialism, which would change their fates regarding foreign relations and the future of their nation. Japan accepted imperialism and it led them to become a world power and China was against the Western ways and therefore being used by Europe. In this paper I will discuss why China and Japan experienced different fates in the age of imperialism.

    Read More

  • Culture And Communication Essay

    1722 Words  | 4 Pages

    The intimacy between culture and communication exists in the fact that actors interact by way of communication which is a technique used to continue the established patterns of meaning, thinking, feeling and acting. There are common characteristics in most definitions of culture. These characteristics are that culture is shared and is a stable construct, consisting of patterns, values, symbols, meanings, beliefs, assumptions and expectations. The characteristics of culture mean that culture is socially constructed and, therefore, must be learned.

    Read More

  • Cultural Boundaries Essay

    1488 Words  | 3 Pages

    Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “The only thing that is constant is change.” Throughout the span of our lives, we constantly see change occur in the world around us. As human beings, we tend to reject the idea of change; we disfavor the idea of someone or something coming into our lives and disrupting our way of living. Because of this, we create boundaries that separate ourselves from those that we deem to be “different.” This process of thinking often leads to situations where we create a type of “us versus them” ordeal, where one group of people sees themselves as superior to the other. Creating boundaries between different groups of people is not a concept we are unfamiliar with, there have been countless examples of it throughout history, such as the Holocaust or the battle over slavery; we can also see ethnic boundaries forming today within education systems and things like the Black Lives Matter movement. The

    Read More

  • Multicultural Culture Essay

    1108 Words  | 3 Pages

    Cultural Appropriation versus Multiculturalism In today's society, there are many different cultures that individuals identify with. Culture is very important to many people and is something that helps define who we are. When different cultures are respected and appreciated, it is a beautiful thing, it can bring individuals in society closer to one another. Ideally, this understanding of one another’s cultures can lead to multiculturalism.

    Read More

  • Cultural Reflection Paper

    863 Words  | 2 Pages

    There are a lot of different cultures in the world we live in today. Finding the place you belong and discovering your own culture can be a challenge. This is especially true when you look at culture as an individual versus culture in your family, or even within your community. I’ve always been very family oriented, so that plays a big part in who I am and how my family’s dynamic works. I believe that my family has had a huge impact on the development of my culture, and I hope that I have had the same impact on theirs.

    Read More

More about Western Culture Essay

Open Document