Answer to Question 1
There is a tendency for health care providers to enforce their beliefs, practices, and values upon clients, sometimes unknowingly because they are unaware of cultural differences, but more often because they believe their ideas are superior. This process is called cultural imposition, and it impacts nearly all client care. If the new immigrant is from a culture that values unconventional, alternative, or folk medical care, the immigrant may be met with resistance unless his or her health care provider is open to and willing to operate in partnership with unconventional health care practitioners.
Answer to Question 2
Southeast Asians may appear indifferent to a terminally ill family member and have little interest in prolonging life because of a faith in reincarnation. Some African Americans distrust white American health care recommendations regarding do-not-resuscitate orders in part because they contradict the critical role of faith in African American healing. An Orthodox Jewish patient may believe that physicians are mandated to preserve life and that any person who assists death through denial of sustaining care is a murderer; a non-Orthodox Jew may believe that no one should endure uncontrollable pain and thus dying should not be prolonged. Middle Easterners traditionally demand that everything be done to keep a person alive because death is in God's hands, and one must never give up hope. Mexican American family members might view death as part of God's plan for a relative; they might be against anything that would quicken death, or they may expect the practitioner to make the decision.
The tone of the nurse-patient introduction sets the stage for the patient interview and patient care
Examples of Health Care Plans
Teaching postoperative care
One of the cultural privileges of being white in the United States is less suspicion of wrongdoing.
Administrative and Clinical Procedures for the Canadian Health Professional, 4/E
Day Care and Attachment