The Importance of Culturally Responsive Healthcare in 2022
Intro:
We are all familiar with the impacts of covid-19 on our everyday lives. For nearly two years, we have struggled to overcome one of the most detrimental forces our culture has seen in my short lifetime. The consequences of the decisions our healthcare providers have made will undoubtedly last for several decades to come.
Whether you believe in the actions that have been taken (regarding masks, vaccines, quarantines, etc.), or not, there will undoubtedly be a generation of people who live with the consequences of the actions made right now in the healthcare industry.
For this reason, I believe it is important to stop and reflect on where we are, what we are doing, and how we should be moving forward.
The concept of culturally responsive healthcare has been around for quite some time, but I believe there has been a false interpretation of the principles it promotes and the impact it has on patient outcomes. My hope is that through this short article, we will rediscover the valuable role each of us has in moving our society forward in this post-covid era.
1: Patients need specialized care.
I guarantee that you, or someone you love, has had a horrifying experience at one time or another with a nurse, physician, or surgeon. Why is this the case? Of course every experience is circumstantial, but are there any key similarities that can be extrapolated from this knowledge? I believe there is.
Because culture can be defined at nearly any level, there is an infinite number of opportunities to specialize the care that each patient receives. Additionally, there is a limitless number of ways to mess things up. People make stupid mistakes often, and to a degree, there is little we can do about this. Everyone is human. But in some situations, negative outcomes could have been completely eliminated if just one person stopped to take the entire patient into account.
Everyone agrees that patients should be treated as individuals, instead of a case to be solved. However, what does this realistically mean? I argue that the only way to prevent this objectification from happening is by taking each patients’ whole self into account. There lifestyle, family history, cultural differences, language barriers, religious beliefs, past experiences, feelings, etc. all make up who a person is. If we do not take all of these different aspects into account, it is impossible to understand who they are and why they matter.
Patients need specialized care because patients are people. Understanding the cultural background of a person adds a layer of depth to their personality. Like a painted portrait, each color represents a different aspect of a beautiful work. We too are portraits that reflect the beauty humanity has to offer, in our own unique way.
2: Healthcare workers are burning out.
The Association of American Medical Colleges published an article in June of 2021 showing the prevalence of burnout across the US medical field. The article states, “An overwhelming 55% of front-line health care workers reported burnout (defined as mental and physical exhaustion from chronic workplace stress), with the highest rate (69%) among our youngest staff — those ages 18 to 29. That same age group also reported the highest negative impact of the pandemic on their mental health (75%), though a majority of all health care workers (62%) reported some mental health repercussions.”
It is blatantly obvious that the medical field as a whole is tainted by the prevalence of high burnout and high mental strain. As a student pursuing a career in the medical field, the likelihood of myself burning out is, according to these statistics, highly probable. How can I, a young man, face this knowledge and not be afraid? If we stop and honestly consider medical professions in their current state, it is completely rational for a students to be worrisome about the future of their profession. However, I believe that now, as we move forward in a post-covid world, we have the opportunity to improve, not worsen, the current state of our medical system.
Not only should professionals be culturally responsive toward their patients, but patients too should be culturally responsive toward their caregivers. Nurses, PA’s, and physicians are all people as well. Part of the toxicity we see comes from a lack of understanding about the sacrifices these workers make to make patients’ lives better. Only someone who is truly committed to their patients would choose to suffer in their career for the sake of creating positive patient outcomes. There are nurses who pour their lives into their work, sometimes at the expense of their own health, just to help others. I think we should stop and take note of this and give grace to these amazing people. Cultural competence goes in both directions.
3: The politicization of healthcare is crippling our ability to move forward.
The term “culturally responsive” has been predominately interpreted as a way of pushing a political agenda, but as I’ve learned in recent weeks, this is not the entire story.
Do people use terms like these to push their own propaganda? Of course they do! But I would argue that this is not the majority of people. Instead, the healthcare professionals who are presenting this concept, I believe, are truly trying to improve the medical system by creating an environment of compassion and collaboration.
Since vaccines have been developed to combat covid-19, politicization on both sides of the isle has went off of the rails. On one side, people believe that vaccines should be forced into the arms of every living creature. And on the total opposite end, people believe that vaccines are a curse of the antichrist and a plot to kill all republicans. How low must we go as a society before we are willing to come together and accept reality for what it is?
Vaccines are one of the greatest inventions in all of modern medicine. It has saved the lives of millions and enables us to walk around without fear of dying from polio, or any number of other diseases. However, there are risks associated with the infringement upon an adult’s liberty to abstain from these vaccines. We must be cognizant that both realities exist.
Rationality should come before politicization, but the only way to get there is through a willingness to be culturally aware of each persons’ views, taking into account what they believe, and being willing to respectfully disagree.
Perhaps the over-politicization of the healthcare industry has resulted in many of our medical shortcomings. Perhaps nurses and doctors could do their jobs better without the intervention of politics into their workspace. Perhaps being culturally aware of each other is the best way forward.
Conclusion:
Our world has been in a constant state of confusion since the discovery of the covid-19 virus. Millions of people worldwide have personally experienced this virus and the lasting effects it brings. Lives have been devastated by limited resources, poor care, or even no care whatsoever. Hundreds of thousands of people are no longer living. Families are still grieving the losses of their loved ones. The poorest and most vulnerable are bearing the weight of our inability to move forward. Instead of offering better care to more people, we sit around and bicker. The weight our healthcare workers are shouldering is immense, despite our government’s best efforts.
I propose that we should move forward, concerned for our neighbors and loved ones, willing to look at each other as more than just a name and face. Everyone has their own unique set of experiences. If we can learn to value this, perhaps we can stop the cycle of unnecessary suffering in our hospitals. Let’s finally come together and value the importance of culturally responsive healthcare in 2022.
AAMC Article: https://www.aamc.org/news-insights/medical-burnout-breaking-bad