Aspects of Dr. Williams’ behavior that influence the families he works with
The behavioral aspects of Dr. Williams that influence the decisions and the health care outcomes of the families he works with are cultural incompetence, language, family beliefs, views, experiences and backgrounds of those families.
Dr. Williams is not able to learn about the people’s culture because of lack of time; he is uncomfortable with that that he experiences problems with speaking about patients’ culture and way of life due to contradiction with scientific findings. This comes out clearly when he was handling the Waleed family.
Their belief in the evil eye was totally against the scientific evidence. So it is hard for him to deal with that. The Waleed thought that the doctor was undermining them. In Vietnamese families, for instance, the Phans, speaking loudly and hurriedly is considered bad manners.
Moreover, in their culture, men are addressed but not women, and mothers give their children’s test medicines because of lack of sufficient medical regulations. Normally, mothers care for their children. In addition, according to the Vietnam traditions, putting hands in the pocket or passing a form with a single hand is absolutely uncouth.
Dr. Williams needs to understand the languages of the families he works with. For example, in the case of Chiphan, he was not able to communicate with them effectively because he applied medical terminologies without worrying at all about the families’ health literacy. This family, therefore, did not receive any healthcare and considered him to be impolite in the way he addressed them and sworn not to come back to him again.
The roles of culture, ethnicity, race and socioeconomic status
The responsibilities played by culture, ethnicity, race and socioeconomic status in families’ experiences in the healthcare system have differences in receiving treatment based on these factors (Paez, 2008). There is evidence that the minor cultural and tribal groups get an inferior quality of healthcare as compared to the major groups.i.e. the Americans. The factors affecting access to healthcare such as insurance covers, age, disease severity and income are controlled (Paez, 2008).
There is a significant difference in how patients who require lung cancer surgery, kidney transplants, cardiac catherization, amputations, flu vaccinations and mammography are treated depending on their culture, race, socio-economic status and ethnicity.
Factors influencing disparities in healthcare outcomes
Treatment of patients of some groups is different from others mostly because of their race and ethnic backgrounds. Black’s reports that they have received unfair treatment as compared to the white, and they also anticipate unfair treatment in the future based on race and ethnicity. Illustrations portray that life expectancy of white groups is significantly higher than of other groups irrespective of their level of education (Howard & Jeffrey, 2009).
Economic barriers, lack of transport, mistrust, care seeking behaviors and attitude can affect healthcare outcomes.
Literacy in health issues influences health care delivery in that most patients do not understand medical information and medical terminologies and, therefore, cannot discuss medical issues leading to poor health outcomes (Howard & Jeffrey, 2009).
The healthcare providers’ attitudes are sometimes based on the behaviors or health of minority groups, therefore, this affects the clinical decisions they make.
Residential areas affect healthcare outcomes because in most cases, black mainly reside in areas with poor hospitals, hence they are likely to get inferior healthcare (Ehiri, 2009).
References
Ehiri, J. (2009). Maternal Child Health Bureau [MCHB] . Newyork: Libray of congress.
Howard, H. G., & Jeffrey, A. B. (2009). Transforming Mental Health Services: Implementing the Federal Agenda for Change. Washington D.C: Library of congress.
Paez, K. A. (2008). Cultural competence and the patient-clinician relationship. Maryland: John Hopkins University.