Cultural Competence in Healthcare

414 CA2 Reflection Healthcare
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Cultural Competence in Healthcare
Cultural beliefs and values influence how individuals seek treatment and medical care. It also affects how they manage their self-care routine and health-related choices when responding to a particular therapy. Cultural issues play important roles in medical compliance, including patients’ adherence to medical instructions and recommendations (Miller, & Abu-Alhaija, 2019). Since healthcare is a complex phenomenon, it is subject to language and cultural challenges that may complicate the situation. The video illustrates the relationship between pain and ethnicity. The patient, a Latino construction worker, complains to doctor Walker of persistent and increasing post-surgery pain. The doctor dismisses his claims citing that he may be drug-seeking. That is not the case. During a consultation with Doctor Elizabeth Smyth, Walker notes that post-surgery pain different from one ethnic group to another. According to a post-surgery pain study, he also notes that Latino men depict increasing pain compared to other men from distinct ethnic groups.
Increasing cultural diversity calls for cultural competency among clinicians to ensure they meet their patients’ needs and offer quality services. This has been the concern of several healthcare service institutions in recent years, ensuring comprehensive healthcare delivery. According to the video, it is evident that patients from different cultures respond to post-surgery pain differently. Carlos, a Latino, depicts increased pain on his knee post-operation during therapy and places some pressure (Miller, & Abu-Alhaija, 2019). He claims that over-the-counter drugs are not working well for him and that they are not sufficient to relieve the pain. Various ethnic groups have a different perception of pain and for a specific illness. For instance, most African-Americans report higher pain and suffering compared with whites. In the video, Carlos suffers significant pain levels despite medical advances and over-the-counter pain relievers in postoperative pain management. The pain is associated with recovery, satisfaction, and readmission after surgery.
After surgery, pain control is essential to speed up recovery and reduce the risks of developing other complications such as blood clots and pneumonia. This is a post-treatment undertaking to ensure the recovery process is smooth and does away with other risks. Postoperative pain is normally caused by a sensory and psychological response to surgical injury and low stimulation of unmyelinated nerve endings in the dermis, which produce itching. High stimulation on the nerves results in pain. From the video, Doctor Walker should have investigated the patients’ postoperative pain using the 1967, 7th subcategory pain code. The code states that postoperativ...