Cross-Cultural Health Perspectives - Personal Statement Example

Q1- Even "objectively measured clinical outcomes" may be erroneous when there is a lack of cross-cultural understanding. Apart from attitudinal differences between the patient and the care provider leading to miscommunication, there could be 'real' differences like some conditions/immunities being more prevalent among some groups, and even differing responses to medication. Q 4 - Even a "conscientious" care-provider cannot eliminate all prejudice or false assumptions about other groups of people, as many of these may be deeply rooted in his/her subconscious.

Being aware of this enables me to question my assumptions, accept that I am prone to error, and retain a degree of flexibility to correct myself when the evidence points out that I may have culturally stereotyped a patient at any time. Q 5- When noting medical history where a communication barrier exists, yes or no answers are least useful (response a). It is possible that when the questions are asked, some important aspect may be ignored. My mistake in this question happened due to inattention.

I gave the responsibility for the 'most useful', instead of for 'least useful'. The lesson for me in this is that I should be paying more attention, in general, when I do a task-whether reading something or listening to a patient. A lesson is taken! Q 6 - The least useful technique when tackling a patient's beliefs about treatment is to tell the patient that his/her belief is false, even if this is done in a gentle manner (resp b) because beliefs could be deeply entrenched. I was unable to identify this while doing the quiz.

Q 13- Japanese men, after migration to the US, retain a lower susceptibility to coronary heart disease than the general population (resp b)-a fact which I now know. Facts like these, based on research studies, can be accessed by more study and reading. Q15 - Immigrants who go to traditional healers do not keep away from Western medicine (resp b-false)Q 17- A smile could express worry or dissatisfaction in some cultures. (resp a) It is useful to know this, a fact which seems strange at first, but so necessary for a care provider to know so that diagnosis is correctly done.

All the other responses (16 in number, as earlier mentioned) were correct. In order to maintain cultural competence-both to avoid the deficiencies as revealed in my quiz answers, as well as to strengthen my correct perceptions-I have to keep working at developing more empathy, enhance listening skills, retain openness of mind, and improve my information base by keeping myself updated about various research studies regarding health indicators of different cultural groups.