Essay Sample on Cultural Difference in Healing

The primary role of healthcare providers is to improve the health of the patients without regard to cultural backgrounds. Cultural differences in the administration of service have never been an issue to healthcare providers. They keep the cultural differences aside and focus on their primary role of ensuring the health of the patients is taken care of. Despite this, there have been issues related to proper resource allocation in healthcare centers. Political and institution-based issues have affected the performance of medical professionals as well as how they relate, which has affected service delivery and healthcare outcomes.

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Issues Regarding Resource Allocation

While health care providers form different cultural contexts work together to ensure that health care outcomes are improved, lack of skilled human resources is an issue that affects their role. There is an alarming shortage of skilled medical professionals in many countries across the globe. This shortage is caused by high turnover, lack of quality education providers as well as inequitable workforce distribution (Smith et al., 2008). In some cases, the high fees for medical courses are also a barrier to many health care providers who want to upgrade and new ones wanting to join the medical career. There has been little concern from the political class to address these issues, and it acts as a barrier to medical knowledge exchange.

There is a minimum number of the medical staff that is supposed to handle a particular case to ensure efficient service delivery. However, many health care centers lack enough medical staff to manage the health care needs of the patients. These health care providers are forced to work for long hours and overtime, and this may lead to burnouts and demotivation, which negatively impacts the quality of health care administered to the patient.

There is also the issue of a lack of focus on upgrading. While health care providers are determined to upgrade their knowledge and skills to ensure that they share them with others without regard for the cultural differences, there is the lack of opportunities for upgrading. In recent times, the medical technologies are advancing at a very high rate. Thus, medical professionals are required to upgrade themselves with emerging skills by attending medical workshops, seminars, and other related short courses. Despite this, many health care institutions are not keen on providing such avenues that can help health care providers upgrade their knowledge and also provide a forum for sharing of knowledge among health care providers of different cultures. Often, the institutions perceive this venture as time-consuming and also expensive to oversee. In some cases, the health care providers are required to manage the entire expenses themselves, and this discourages them from upgrading their skills and knowledge.

The other issue is the lack of appreciation by the institutions for the sharing of knowledge. In a hospital setting, different professionals are differently equipped in terms of knowledge (Dochterman & Grace, 2001). Thus, there are those that are at the front line in sharing knowledge with the other professionals. This leads to improved delivery of services by all the professionals and improved health care outcomes. Despite this noble role played by the medical professionals in teaching others new skills, there is barely any appreciation that they get from the institutions. Even with their added role, they are still allocated the ordinary roles just like anyone else.

In some cases, promotions in health care are political in nature. There is the possibility of finding the leadership positions being given to the dominant culture while the minority cultures are not given promotions even when they are qualified. This disparity caused by the institutions have become a hindrance to the sharing of knowledge and delivery of services by medical professionals. While the medical professionals are determined to help each other irrespective of the cultural background, there is always an attempt by the political class to cause a division by practicing inequality. Multi-cultural exchange of knowledge is valued by the health care providers, and they practice it out of their own volition, but its sustainability continue if issues of discrimination creep in.

Solutions

While the above issues affect the sharing of knowledge and service delivery in the health care setting, the institutions have a role to play to ensure that these issues are addressed. One of the things that institutions can do is provide more funding to motivate medical professionals share knowledge effectively and deliver the best services (Nash, 2010). This can be done by the institutions supporting the medical professionals in upgrading their knowledge and skills so that when they have done so, they can share their knowledge with other medical professionals. This will ensure that there is an all-round development of skills and knowledge in the health care setting.

There is also the need to practice equality and equity in the health care settings. There ought to be no discrimination at all, and medical professionals needed to be treated fairly irrespective of their cultural affiliations. In fact, the cultural background should not be an issue of consideration in promotions and assigning roles in the health care setting. The health care institutions need to ensure that promotions are based on merit and that no group seems to be discriminated against (Cowen & Moorhead, 2014). Once this is done, medical professionals will be more willing to share knowledge and skills in a bid to build the whole team for better service delivery.

There are cases where some medical professionals may not be willing to share knowledge with others, especially because they may have acquired it very expensively. To address this, institutions need to build incentives for knowledge-sharing. The medical professionals need to be motivated by the institutions to ensure that they are free to share whatever knowledge and skills they have with their peers. Such medical professionals who are endowed with skills and knowledge can be useful resources where the institutions can organize workshops and seminars to equip other medical professionals with skills and knowledge.

Conclusion

Medical professions are determined to share knowledge, experiences, and skills with their colleagues with regard to cultural differences. Despite this, issues brought about by politics and institutions limit this sharing of knowledge and skills this affecting service delivery. Issues such as lack of skilled human resources, lack of opportunities to upgrade, and lack of incentives affect the sharing of knowledge in a multicultural context. To address these issues, institutions can build incentives for knowledge-sharing. The medical professionals need to be motivated by the institutions to ensure that they are free to share whatever knowledge and skills they have with their peers. Additionally, equity and equality need to be stressed in the health care sector to ensure that there does not exist cases of discrimination and that promotions are merit-based.

References

Cowen, P. S., & Moorhead, S. (2014). Current issues in nursing. St. Louis: Mosby.

Dochterman, J. M. C., & Grace, H. K. (2001). Current issues in nursing. St. Louis: Mosby.

Nash, M. (2010). Physical health and well-being in mental health nursing: Clinical skills for practice. Maidenhead, England: Open University Press.

Smith, C., Valsecchi, R., Mueller, F., & Gabe, J. (2008). Knowledge and the discourse of labour process transformation: Nurses and the case of NHS Direct for England. Work, Employment & Society, 22(4), 581-599. Retrieved July 14, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/23749168