SOCIAL AND HEALTHCARE

Social and Healthcare

Social and Healthcare

Introduction

With the progressively changing society depicting transitions in almost all aspects every now and then, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the healthcare sector to respond effectively and flexibly to all the patients. The changing society represents diverse health beliefs predominantly ingrained by culturally grounded health concepts, with the culture being diverse and varying across the globe. Physicians are presented with challenges in that patients attribute varying level of importance to their health beliefs in treatment and outcome, and physicians usually fail to intercept those health beliefs, predominantly because of time constraint. This triggers the need for culturally competent physicians who possess the ability to recognize differing health beliefs held by patients, pertaining to varying range of illnesses. This recognition of belief is facilitated through the physician asking few brief and open-ended questions from the patients, so as to gauge if they hold any particular health beliefs physicians should know about, and if so, the extent to which patients believe it impacts and plays a role in their treatment and outcome. Subsequently, culturally competent physicians build treatment plan which predominantly revolves around the negotiation they have undertaken with the patient, so as to develop a treatment plan which is mutually satisfying and thereby likely to be used by the patient. Thus, the patient does not come up with the feelings that their beliefs were not respected while thinking that the treatment plan and medications they are provided with does not make any sense, thereby subsequently rejecting the treatment and the medications. The patients with distinctive health beliefs discard the treatment plans and medications suggested by conventional doctors subsequently embarking upon their own healing strategies, built around their culturally grounded health beliefs. This leads to their belief that doctors do not treat them with as much consideration as they should thereby subsequently replacing doctors and medical treatment with their own healing strategies, which sometimes directly impacts their health and well-being.

The root cause of this that can be made out here and is most evident is the culture. Culture predominantly denotes learned beliefs and traditions which are shared among community members or members pertaining to a particular group. The continuum of shared aspects is extensive ranging from values and beliefs to communication styles to institutions, which as mentioned above forms a culture. This culture subsequently influences beliefs pertaining to individuals' health in addition to their medical treatment outcomes among various others elements. And for the optimum healthcare to be provided, it becomes imperative for the doctors to be culturally competent so as to effectively treat those patients also, who believes that their culture plays significant role in their treatment plan and its outcome.

Discussion

Society is changing and this change is evident in the fact that we are living in a global village, we are in the phase of globalization or probably have move past it. Globalization has brought together people from diverse regions and cultures, facilitating their interaction on a more frequent basis than ...