Mental Healthcare - Admission/Application Essay Example

The distribution and availability of healthcare are something that has grown rapidly over the past several decades. However, regardless of the fact that healthcare provision and accessibility has experienced rapid growth, key elements of society still experience accessibility issues related to health care provision; especially with relation to the overall ease of access for disenfranchised members of society – namely minorities. For purposes of this particular application essay, a discussion of how mental health care has not achieved the needs of minority and/or ethnic children will be analyzed. Although there are many means by which healthcare and mental health care can be promoted, this particular analysis will focus on maximizing the level of cultural appreciation and sensitivity that healthcare providers can exhibit in each and every situation they encounter. Moreover, by analyzing this particular topic, it is the hope of this author that the reader will be able to integrate with an understanding of the personal and professional goals that are reflected via this particular sub-topic.

Though it may be understood that cultural sensitivity and awareness is merely a fashionable buzzword, the reality of the fact is that in an increasingly globalized world, the need for cultural sensitivity and appreciation is greater than it has ever been before. In simpler times, it might be understood and appreciated by the nursing professional that most patients ascribe to something of a given societal and/or cultural norm. However, as a result of the fact that increasing numbers of individuals from different backgrounds, ethnicities, and/or cultures make up a more and more important and populous components of current society, a focus upon this factor is increasingly demanded. In effect, whereas the previous model was wholly unconcerned with the degree to which minorities identified with a given paradigm or service, the current paradigm of service provision helps to underscore the overall importance and necessity of all members of society being able to identify and understand what specifically the healthcare professionals are trying to integrate with them. Within such a dynamic, it can immediately be noted that seeking to describe a fundamental more or concept/standard of “averageness” can no longer be utilized to maximize patient health. Sadly, as a function of the fact that many nursing professionals within the field have continued to cling to a prior understanding of culture, this particular aspect and understanding have been delayed. Moreover, as a result of this delay and fundamental misunderstanding of the means by which individuals require different approaches, minorities, ethnic groups, and cultural subunits have been uniquely left out of healthcare provision within society (Cokely et al., 2011). Whereas each of these compliments is extraordinarily important to the provision of healthcare in general, they are compounded when one seeks to approach the issue of mental health care. Due to the fact that even a cursory level of understanding with regards to the way in which culture and society impact mental health, one can begin to realize that these two are in fact inseparable.

In such a manner, seeking to provide a holistic approach to medicine, and specifically mental health care, within each and every group is a necessity. This is something of a nebulous concept and a confusing idea to understand due to the fact that what is being described is a situation by which the healthcare professional will not only need to be kind is it of cultural and ethnic differentials but also seek to promote healthcare, and by extension mental health care, among all individuals at something of an equal level (Cross & Singh, 2012).