Question

How do you think the culture-health relationship is treated in this approach towards developing cultural competence?

"We should try to identify and find out all of the patients background be it cultural, race, ethnicity, language or age, so that we will be able to behave and deal with them in their own manner while trying to adapt and respect their personal beliefs".

Answer 1

Ofcourse it is true. Respect should be given to other people's cultural beliefs, ethnicity or language. People are different and have different beliefs and patterns based on their geographical location and so that there cultural and ethnicity backgrounds. For instance, tribal population. They have different cultural beliefs and practices compared to general population. Identifying others cultural practices is challengable but forcing them to follow different from their beliefs loss one's trust. In this case, treating some specific population based on their beliefs is important to begin a trust between patient and physician who is treating and can thereby increases their interaction to other people who is different from them. The Jehovah Witness, a major denomination of Christianity is known for its rejection of blood transfusion from a very long years and still they do not receive blood transfusion even in emergency situations because of their religious beliefs. So, instead of blood transfusion, they follow other regimen to halt bleeding during a surgery. From all these examples, it is better understood that, people are different and living with different cultural backgrounds. Understanding them is the better choice to develop a cultural competence approach to specific populations.