Discuss about the Culture as variable in the health research.
The healthcare setting is a highly sensitive working environment that needs to be carefully tackled by the involved professionals. My experience as a service provider in the care setting taught me the relevance of communication and culture and their impact on the quality of care service. These intangible elements have a significant impact on the service user and the service provider.
Initially, I was unaware of how cultural beliefs and values influence the health of the patients. When I was treating my first patient Jenny, a highly conservative and religious elderly individual, I did not understand that culture affects the perception of illness, health, beliefs relating to the causes of a medical ailment. Due to my lack of knowledge about these cultural aspects, the communication between Jenny and me was very strained. She would not openly tell me about her current state of health and she seemed to be having a hostile attitude towards me. Since I was the nurse in charge of her, I had to bridge the gap between us. So I consulted my senior in the healthcare setting. She had over ten years of experience in the care work setting (Powers, et al., 2015). She made me understand that more than the treatment; it is the healthy communication and the understanding of the culture that helps patients to respond to the treatment. After taking her advice and implementing the same in case of Jenny I realized that she positively communicated with me and responded to the treatment that was provided to her in the healthcare setting.
The main issues that I faced in the care setting were that there was a lack of bond between Jenny and me due to our different cultural values and beliefs. This difference further strained the communication between us. My role was that of a fresher nurse at the time. The main challenge was that I failed to understand the cultural perspective of the patient. Due to the cultural issues and poor interaction between the patient and me, she did not respond to the treatment earlier. My role in the situation was important because I was in charge of Jenny. But since I had to focus on many other patients I did not think of the steps that I could take to improve her experience in the care facility. Due to my ineffectiveness s a nurse in the initial stage, the consequences for Jenny, me and the overall setting was ineffective. My lack of understanding of her cultural principles made her distant from me and thus she did not communicate with me properly (Prince, et al., 2016).
The action that I took was that I consulted my senior about the patient and our differences. I was able to observe a gradual and constructive change in the attitude of Jenny. I tried to bridge the gap by discussing her ailment with her from her cultural perspective. It was a positive move for me because it made Jenny comfortable around me. She was able to share her experience in the healthcare setting with me (Raghupathi & Raghupathi, 2014).
The experience as a new nurse was highly challenging for me because I lacked experience and the appropriate perspective. But gradually I was able to adapt to the care environment. I was able to learn various things in the process thanks to the support of my colleagues, seniors and the patients.
After the reflection in Level 1, I have come to the realization that the professionals in the healthcare setting need to take into account the tangible and non-tangible elements that influence the effectiveness of the care service. After treating Jenny, I realized that I need to broaden my understanding of the culture so that similar challenges can be effectively dealt in the future. According to the research paper “Impact of culture on healthcare” by Inginia Genao, for the purpose of effectively and efficiently treating patients, the service providers need to appreciate the impact of culture on the healthcare setting (Bussey-Jones & Genao, 2003). The particular medical encounter with Jenny helped me to understand her cultural values and beliefs. It further influenced the medical regimens, patient’s satisfaction level, and ultimate healthcare outcome (Ratnanesan, et al., 2014).
After I consulted with my senior about the issue, I was unsure whether my changed attitude with Jenny would encourage her to open up to me or not. But I came to realize that the healthcare service providers need to take the initiative to make the patients and other service users comfortable in the care facility. As per “Culture as a variable in health research: perspectives and caveats” by Hana Al-Bannay, the cultural values and principles affect the attitude and behaviour of people. It even has a significant impact on the healthcare treatment that people opt to have (Al-Bannay et al., 2013).
I believe in the future, I must try to understand more cultural values and beliefs of people so that the patients that I will serve can be comfortable. Today, I have gained substantial experience in the care setting which has helped me to improve my care approach. Previously, I was only guided by the medical treatment model but now I have realized that along with the treatment approach, it is necessary to balance the professional and personal relationship with the patients so that the health outcome can be improved in the process. In the near future, I need to focus on the language and pattern of communication in the healthcare environment because these components have a direct influence on the cultural aspects and the quality of care service that is offered to the end users (Reeves, et al., 2017). The effectiveness of the care treatment can be strengthened when the service providers take into account the beliefs and practices of the patient and try to combine it with the relevant diagnosis and treatment model.
For the purpose of effectively and constructively handling such healthcare situations in the future, I need to broaden my personal cultural model so that there will be scope for me to understand the cultural values and beliefs of the service users. Such an approach will ensure that the diagnosis and treatment that is offered to the patients is effective from the very beginning (Roberts, et al., 2016). Currently, I try to adopt a friendly and healthy approach while interacting with patients so that they can feel comfortable with me. Such a step has worked for me because this encourages them to share their exact health-related conditions. It helps me as a nurse because I along with the physicians am able to provide the most effective and relevant treatment model to the care service user.
Currently, I am working on understanding all the elements that operate in the social and cultural environment in the healthcare setting so that I can comprehend various dimensions such as the time and space. The improved understanding of these elements will help me to be a productive care professional and it will also make sure that the health outcome is improved in the process. Such an approach is necessary to be adopted not only me but for all the professionals that function in the healthcare setting so that the ultimate health outcome can be improved. Such an action-oriented approach can create value for the healthcare service providers, the service users and the other stakeholders that are involved in the setting. My experience has helped me to identify the various complexities that can arise in the care environment and have an adverse impact on the health outcome of the care users. Such an approach can strengthen the cultural model of the care service setting (Zhang, et al., 2017).
The situation that I have elaborated on denotes to the ethical issues that I had faced during providing health care service. One of my senior colleagues in the health care organization where I was working had a biased behavior towards the patients belonging to high status and financial background. There happened to be an incident where my senior colleague seemed too attentive towards to be patient who belonged to a better background on similar terms. I also observed that she clearly ignored the other patients who were admitted in the same ward. When I asked her “Why do not you are you ignoring the other patients while dedicating your entire work time of the day to one single patient?” Her reply was very uncaring and shocking at the same time. She said” value of health of wealthier patients definitely comes first!”. I was intimidated by such reaction from her to a very high extent. This sort of dialog and belief was something I could not and cannot accept every in both my professional as well as personal life. I had also observed that due to her biased health care service to the patients belonging to better status and financial background had negative influence on the other health carers in the health care organizations (Baddour, et al., 2015). The other carers had started getting biased and cared more for the same patients who had better privilege in the same ward. They had also started to treat and care for the patients in the similar manner in other wards too (Igoumenidis & Zyga, 2011).
The issue identified in the situation encompasses by un-acceptance in providing more attention in the provision health care and treatment to the patients belonging to higher status and social background. The problem also includes the fact that I cannot tolerate to watch other health carers including the nurses to get influenced by a senior colleague in a negative way in such a delicate workplace scenario that is associated with the health of a human being. At first, I was not paying much attention to the scenarios that was happening in regards to the health care provision. I was completely attentive towards my work in the best possible manner. I always believed in giving my best efforts at work. I have a believe that when an individual is working in an health care sector, he or she is entitled to have the best of humanitarian nature for the development of the whole humanity as a whole. I was agitated to a great extent when I found the biased behavior of my senior colleague to be projected to such a great extent (Barlam, et al., 2016). I have been conducting my duties in a very sincere manner. It was very disappointing to find any health carer to act in such unethical manner, that too in such situations where other health requirements of other patients were more demanding and urgent. As a result, the other patients were not provided timely and enough care that they were supposed to receive. I happened to try providing them with optimum health care with my best efforts (Dudeck, et al., 2015). However, I was notable to make the health care as fruitful as it could be. This happened a s there were many patients in the ward who were not attended with care and the entire was assigned to me and my senior colleague to be in charge of (Fortenberry Jr & McGoldrick, 2016). The total number of patients was divided into two halves and each half was assigned to both of us to take care of. I could not stand looking at the patients who were not getting enough attention and care from my senior colleague due to her biased behavior and then complained the entire matter to the Head of the Department (Mikkonen, et al., 2016).
By considering the above mentioned situation in the health care organization, I could find the analysis of situation from the ethical theories of deontology, virtue ethics and principlism. My senior needed to act according to the rights and duties on the basis of being respectful to all individuals. Her intention of serving and caring the patients’ needs to come up with the focus on true intention of providing genuine care and not due to any social criteria. She should have and should continue to work and provide care in obligations, rules and duties in an ethical manner (Fortenberry Jr & McGoldrick, 2016). It was also observed that there was conflict in the interest in the health care setting between me and my senior colleague. On the other hand, the relevance of virtue ethics is very significant in this case. This is evident from the fact that my senior colleague should have or should always act from a place of virtues and moral character (Ginter, Duncan & Swayne, 2018). She should have considered that fact that the other individuals are human beings who are in need of health care too apart from the patient who belongs to more privileged background. Further, the application of principilsm theory is also relevant in this scenario of ethical issues in the health care settings as the work as a health carer is definitely based on the ethical considerations of beneficence, autonomy, justice and non-munificence (Gotink, et al., 2015). The attributes have to be imbibed in by my senior colleague in the health care organization as having practical wisdom and acting from virtues are necessary to be implemented in a sensitive scenario like health care organization. In accordance to the research paper “Healthcare Research in Developing Countries: Ethical Issues”, there has been many regulations to keep a check on the ethical behavior of the health carers working in the health care organizations. The declaration of many medical institutions refers to the principles that are to be followed in the health care organizations (Hemphill, et al., 2015). These principles are respect for individual, welfare of every individual, equal importance to health care of every patient irrespective of any bias in regards to class, social status, sex, religion, etc. When the behavior of health carers such as those presented by my senior colleague would be kept in check, then all patients will be getting equal priority and treatment in the health care organization. This can be very well conducted and supervised by the formation of an independent committee of ethics.
In order to prevent such behaviors among the health carers in the health care organization, various strategies can be implemented. Establishing a grievance cell or body for the employees and health carers would be a very effective strategy in this regard. Structuring body that regulates the activity of the health carers and employees would further help in supervising and indentifying any unethical issues cropping up in the health care organization. Complying with the terms and regulations laid down by the regulatory body will provide to be a very effective way to prevent such cases from happening (Kernan, et al., 2014). By providing proper orientation training session regarding ethical aspects to the health carers during their joining period in the health care organization, the health carers can be made aware regarding the consequences in the case of breaching any principles and regulation of ethical behavior. This would address a broader issue of enhancing the brand identity of the health care organization due to provision of high quality health care with very strong ethical considerations. The consequences of providing biased health care service can prove to be highly risky to the health of other patients. This should be, however, be prevented from occurring in the health care organization (Loveday, et al., 2014). As a whole, development of therapeutic association with all the patients will help the patients, employees and the entire health care organization.
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