Question 1
Culture refers to a state of manners, tastes and the intellectual development of a people coupled with their ideas, arts, and customs at a given time (Hernandez et al.). As such, it is the outline that guides human behavior and also influences individual thoughts and actions of a particular society. These behaviors and customs have to be passed from a generation to the other in order to ensure that the culture survives. Culture emergent approach focuses on elaborating and re-conceptualization of factors that are found in the traditional cultural definitions (Hernandez et al.). This approach to culture identifies that the behavior of an individual is focused mainly on multiple influencers who in this case may be general to a particular group or unique to an individual’s own development (Hernandez et al.). Therefore, this approach to culture is different to both the descriptive and the rules approach to culture in the sense that; the descriptive approach dwells only on the characteristics that a researcher records when studying about the behaviors of a given populace (Hernandez et al.). In this direction, therefore, the descriptive approach comes from a broad perspective (Hernandez et al.). Applying the rules approach to culture, the focus is placed on being cognizant of the reality of each member of a particular society. Therefore, since culture emergent is comes about through the interaction of individuals, it is safe to say that it is a combination of the other two approaches to culture (Hernandez et al.).Question 2 Culture can be said to be both persistent and ever changing in the event that new discoveries are made concerning different particular subjects and groups of people (Hernandez et al.). As such, whereby there are interactions between two groups whether consensual or forceful, culture diffusion is likely to happen whereby one group will end up having a new cultural paradigm whereas the other group’s norms remain unchanged (Hernandez et al.). Therefore, the most common form through which culture can be both persistent and ever changing is when a situation of acculturation occurs. In this cultural diffusion model, when two societies with different cultural understandings make contact, the one which is superior is likely to dominate the other one which, consequently, leads to culture diffusing to the inferior group (Hernandez et al.). From such an interaction, the culture of the dominant group remains in check whereas that one of the superior group changes. This effect results to culture being persistent and ever-changing at the same time.Question 3 There is the need to have culturally diverse health care workforce in the country since it will have positive impact s on the health care workforce. Most notably, the concept of cultural diversity will be more proactive which in this case will mean that healthcare providers will be in a better position to understand the cultural backgrounds of the patients that they take care of thus providing them with a holistic type of car that takes into consideration their beliefs and cultures (Salisbury and Byrd). Diversity in the workforce will also result to innovations and improved productivity thereby translating to patients receiving high quality care (Salisbury and Byrd). Such efforts will therefore result to job satisfaction to me as a health care provider.
Question 4 It is has been an interesting and same time highlighting week as far as cultural competence is concerned; I have become to appreciate the role culture play in the provision of health care which takes into account the needs of the patient (Salisbury and Byrd). As such, it is important to have a better understanding of the multiple cultural backgrounds of individuals to be in a good to position to give them the care that they feel is up to their desired levels of care. Such a realization is also important to me as a health care provider since I will derive satisfaction from the services that I provide.
References
Hernandez, Mario, et al. "Cultural competence: A literature review and conceptual model for mental health services." Psychiatric Services (2015).
Salisbury, J., and S. Byrd. Why Diversity Matters in Health Care. N.p., 2015. Web. 3 Feb. 2016. <http://www.csahq.org/pdf/bulletin/issue_12/Diversity.pdf>.
