Healthcare Essay Sample: Cultural Interaction with Hispanics

As I healthcare provider working with an ethnical minority group, in this case, the Hispanic families, I found the need to develop a culturally competent healthcare program to ensure equality in healthcare provision. I encountered many cultural, social, and economic challenges dealing with Hispanic families especially treatment of children and while offering end life care. Through the experiences encountered, I found it necessary to be a trans-cultural practitioner, to deliver adequate medical care to such communities. It is essential to have self-awareness as a health care provider to have respect for the culture difference (Sweitzer, 2013). This implies realizing the barriers such as the communication barrier which is brought about cultural difference and affects the delivery of services.

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Dealing with Hispanic families, I encountered some communications and cultural obstacles this initially affected the provision of health care services. This inspired me to get a deeper understanding of the Hispanic cultures, thus, improving my service delivery. Interactions with the Hispanic community exposed me to the challenges experienced due to cultural differences and can only be overcome by gaining some cultural competence in the work practice.

Role of Culture

Gaining cultural competence in working with such groups could be achieved by acquiring multilingual skills which will eliminate the language barriers which hinder communication with the patients and ultimately affects the provision of health care. A deeper understanding of diverse cultures will ensure balanced reflection while promoting a therapeutic relationship with the patients. It is essential to establish the cultural background of the people that a health care provider encounters and in the process learn something from them in a bid to improve the working relationship (Sweitzer 2013). Having a detailed understanding of other people's culture facilitate one's ability to adapt their skills to an implement an effective healthcare program.

Community Engagement

There's the need to engage the communities to facilitate proper delivery of healthcare. This will ensure the healthcare practitioners will develop an enhanced level of trust and collaboration with the patients. Organizational decision making, program development, and activities such as education exchange should be employed while developing a culturally relevant intervention in health care. This boosts the ability to achieve a positive health outcome in a patient. Incorporating the community leads to a better social problems analysis thus allowing identifications of solutions to such problems Implementation of social policies developed in healthcare provision is made more accessible while community engagement is incorporated in any social and health services (Garthwait, 2016).

Role of Family

In Hispanic culture, individuals' places their personal needs second to the needs of the extended families, a concept they refer to as familismo. This loyalty to families' results in consultation and seeking advice from a broad group of people which in one way is essential in areas such as disease self-management. However, it makes it hard to obtain independent decisions from patients. This can lead to a delayed diagnosis, for instance, in the case of children and elderly thus affecting the quality of health care provided. For example, patients see the need to evaluate treatment options including the type of medications with family members before deciding. This implies the need for health cares to devise measures to deal with such circumstances.

Critical Reflection

From the information provided, the encounters with the Hispanic families influenced my career long goals in a manner which I had increased interests in gaining cultural competence especially while dealing with Hispanic families. This would ensure successful delivery of health care to the vulnerable members in Hispanic particularly children care and end life care. I found the need to engage in sufficient culturally oriented activities and programs in addition to adding on the interaction time with patients during clinical encounters. Of importance is for healthcare personnel to obtain an appreciation of the Hispanic cultures to provide better healthcare to Hispanic patient which is socially and culturally acceptable. In future engagements, I would ensure that I learn the culture of any community that I work with to develop a therapeutic relationship with community members for better patient care.