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Notes on the book by Anne Fadiman “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down”
The book “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” raises many issues, including the cultural barriers, their impact on health care, immigration, racism, laws and rules, and many more. While the book is really about the collision of two systems – the system of medical care in United States and the world system of the Hmong population, it is also about the deeper reasons for the problems that rose in this story. A lot of the Hmong character, brave and noncompliant, is demonstrated through the history of the Hmong people, their involvement in the “American” war (where it was seen as an advantage), their belief that the U.S. is…
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Notes on the book by M.C.Brannigan “Cultural Faultlines in Healthcare: Reflections on Cultural Competency”
This book is meant to draw the readers’ attention to the problems of providing the sensitive care to the patients within American health care system. Brannigan describes the problems caused by the diversity of worldview and values among the patients and doctors that meet through the health care system. The differences in approaches and understandings are causing what he calls cultural faultlines, the divisive issues that cause misunderstandings and create obstacles for better care. This outstanding problem is further fuelled by the fact that the American society in general has grown a profound distrust of the healthcare. Having described the essential problem, the author proposes a solution. He believes that…
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Medicine is a Humane Art: the Basic Principles of Professional Ethics in Chinese Medicine by Zhang and Cheng
This article provides a review of the history of Chinese medicine and the growth and development of medical ethics in this context. What I found especially interesting is the emphasis on the way ethics is addressed, how ethically right behaviour is promoted. We see that Chinese culture pays much attention to moral evaluation, which is expressed by the filial obedience, being respectful and nice to others independent of their social status, and in cherishing life, with appreciation of mortality. Confucius taught that everybody had an inner sense of right and wrong, which they knew by self examination, rather than by following laws and restrictions. “Benevolence is the core of Confucian…
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Notes on article by S. Saha, MD et al. “Patient Centeredness, Cultural Competence and Healthcare Quality”
While the patient centerdness (PC) and cultural competence (CC) essentially have developed from two different focus points, they both aim at improving the quality of healthcare. The people who have worked on the development of the models essentially seemed to have similar understanding of the values of the World and and followed similar intentions to help patients feel better not only on a physical level. “Just as proponents of cultural competence might embrace most aspects of patient centeredness, it is likely that propo- nents of patient centeredness would also embrace these additional features of cultural competence. “ p.1281 This quote sums up this idea – that to be a proponent…
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Notes on the article by by E-shien Chang et al. “Integrating cultural humility into health care professional education and training.”
The article talks about the necessity to expand cultural sensitivity with the emphasis on cultural humility. The authors brings us several examples of how important cultural humility is and how destructive its lack can be. They make a strong point in that the model they are proposing (QIAN model) would allow to correct some faults in patient care such as imbalance of power, which often prevents completely open communication and thus does not allow the doctor to see the full picture. The inclusive nature of this model is adaptable to different cultural and ethnic groups and can be used to enhance cross-cultural communication skills of very different healthcare professionals. While…
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Notes on the article by by Patricia J. Kelly, PhD et al. “Exploring the Theoretical Framework of Cultural Competency Training”
The article explores the theoretical frameworks of cultural competency training for Physician Assistants. It discusses the importance of such training, the main theories of health care cultural competency, and a brief history of its implementation. They propose shifting the view of cultural competency training from being one of the additional topics in the curriculum of medical students to being one of the foundation courses. The authors explain that teaching cultural norms and exposing the students to cultural diversity will not train the students how to appropriately elicit cultural information from patients. They point out that such authors as Shapiro, Lie, Gutierrez, and Zhung have discovered that medical students “tend to…
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Islam – a very short overview
The word Islam means “submission to the will of God”. Islam is the second largest religion in the world. The flowers of Islam are called Muslims. It is a monotheistic religion, as the Muslims believe there is only one God. Muslims believe that Islam was revealed over 1400 years ago in Mecca, Arabia. The word for God in Arabic is Allah. Muslims believe that God sent several prophets to people to teach about his law, including Jesus, Moses, Abraham, and Muhammad. Thus all the prophets of major religions of the World are respected by Muslims. Muslims base their laws on their holy book the Qur’an, and the Sunnah. The Qur’an is…