Nursing Essay: Health, Culture, and Identity

Health, Culture, and Identity
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Health, Culture, and Identify
Introduction
There is a divergence between cultural beliefs about illnesses and the scientific angle during treatment. Culture is a vast concept, and societies may align their reception of medical services to such philosophies. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S DHHS (2015) discusses how with the realization of culture in healthcare, professionals devised multiple augmented care plans that combine medical science and cultural beliefs, dependent on the origin and cultural beliefs of patients. Due to the diversity of cultures, healthcare professionals, nurses, physicians, aestheticians, and pharmacists are all trained to be diverse in their service provision. This is because the treatment accorded to patients makes more sense to them and influences their recovery pace. Gerri-Ann Gallant (2019) underscores this information by mentioning how healthcare professionals apply the successful 4C’s diagnosis plan in such circumstances for better results. One such group is the Asian/Pacific Islanders. This essay discusses the Asian/Pacific Islanders, identifies the principal issues from their cultural perspectives, impacts their health, and demonstrates professionalism when dealing with the group.
Asian/Pacific Islanders Culture, Beliefs, and Impacts
The Asian/Pacific Islanders are the significant inhabitants in Hawaii. They have broad beliefs about their lives, and some touch on their health. The group has a triangle of beliefs regarding health issues stemming from their physical bodies, relationship with their environment, and spirituality (Stanford School of Medicine, n.d). Traditionally, they believed that treatments depended on the three aspects, which had to be wholly fulfilled for one to heal. To do so, a clinical service provider must stay with them to understand their woes with other people, religious beliefs about their gods while treating them for the illnesses diagnosed (Stanford School of Medicine, n.d).
Figure 1: Islamic/Pacific Islanders beliefs about illness
The impact of this belief takes both positive and negative aspects. Positively, a professional will understand the patients’ underlying concerns, encourage them to find solutions, take them through the religious path, and treat them. Religion and supernatural beliefs are easier to understand and solve. For religion, it is either an individual who has backslidden or went contrary to their spirituality. Such cases are handled by encouraging them to reroute their paths to salvation and repentance (Stanford School of Medicine, n.d). The relationship between an individual and the environment attracts psychological examination to find better ways to help them make peace with the people surrounding them. On the other hand, the negative impacts ...