Term paper on Specific kind of treatment

The main aims of the project are to discuss the ways to ensure that a specific kind of treatment was provided in accordance with patient’s cultural background, and to give a brief reflection on this issue.

First of all, according to Jeffreys (2006), it is always necessary to remember that treatment within the cultural context includes the recognition of multiple factors, such as ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation and social class. It is undoubted fact that cultural factors have a strong influence on communication with patients and their families in the process of treatment; and medical care, which takes into account different cultural characteristics, is best achieved with using a multidisciplinary approach.

Saldana (2001) mentioned that “it is important to be aware of our biases, which are part of our own cultural backgrounds, so that we can reduce the barriers that keep us from understanding each other”. It means that health care provider should always remember that communication is a key to cultural understanding, and culture, in fact, forms the value a person attaches to the disease, suffering and death. Consequently, exactly culture affects the way people will interact with the system of health care.

In such a way, thinking about the steps to check that the treatment was provided in accordance with patient’s cultural background, it is necessary to learn the culture of the own patient, to remember that his or her culture is different, but he/she is still the same individual as other patients. It is necessary to talk with the patient, and to understand the way he/she percepts the own health condition and the roots of the disease. Moreover, I strongly believe that it is important to respect the own patient, and to be always polite in any situation, while it is good to realize that understanding of the own definition of culture helps to reveal aspects of the other person’s culture, and to evaluate them in a proper way.

To sum up, we have discussed the ways to understand that the treatment was given to the patient in accordance with the cultural background, and gave a brief reflection on the issue.