Description
Book SynopsisHealthcare in the U.S. faces two interpenetrating certainties. First, with over 66 racial and ethnic groupings, our American Mosaic of worldviews and values unavoidably generates clashes in hospitals and clinics. Second, our public increasingly mistrusts our healthcare system and delivery. One certainty fuels the other. Conflicts in the clinical encounter, particularly with patients from other cultures, often challenge dominant assumptions of morally appropriate principles and behavior. In turn, lack of understanding, misinterpretation, stereotyping, and outright discrimination result in poor health outcomes, compounding further mistrust.To address these cultural fault lines, healthcare institutions have initiated efforts to ensure cultural competence. Yet, these efforts become institutional window-dressing without tackling deeper issues, issues having to do with attitudes, understanding, and, most importantly, ways we communicate with patients. These deeper issues reflect a fundamenta
Trade ReviewThis is a book about the nature of ‘cultural competency,’ its vital significance in healthcare, and the social and cultural barriers to achieving it that exist both in the process of American medical education and in the American system of health care delivery. It has a meta-message about what Brannigan regards as ‘the virtue of presence’ —how health professionals ideally should relate to, and communicate with patients and their families. -- Renee C. Fox, Annenberg Professor Emerita of the Social Sciences, Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania
This book provides an opportunity for students and health care practitioners to reflect upon the philosophical meaning of "cultural competency." Using examples/scenarios from different cultures, Brannigan (College of Saint Rose) offers insights as a bioethicist on how to unveil the essence of cultural competency through the cultivation of presence. This intriguing work is important because American society consists of at least 66 diverse racial and ethnic groups with multiple values and worldviews. When members of diverse groups access the Western biomedical health care system, multiple clashes and conflicts can occur. To bridge these differences in cross-cultural communication, Brannigan offers insight from his work with multicultural patients and their families and caregivers. Chapter 1 discusses the challenges of colliding worldviews in pluralistic American society and health care. Chapter 2 defines cultural competency, and three critical values to understand culture: space, time, and modes of communication. In the final three chapters, Brannigan advocates for the cultivation of a "face-to-face engagement or being-with the patient" as an approach to improve patient-provider interactions. Strategies to cultivate presence in health care interactions may include active listening, pace, and reciprocity. A valuable resource for students and health care practitioners interested in the subject of cultural competency. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * CHOICE *
Table of ContentsIntroduction Chapter One: When Worldviews Collide Chapter Two: From Fault Lines to Cultural Competency Chapter Three: Cultural Discourse and Its Hurdles Chapter Four: On the Path to Presence Chapter Five: Cultivating Presence When There Is Distrust
