Applying Anthropology To Nursing Essay Research Paper

Using Anthropology To Nursing Essay, Research Paper

Anthropology 201

11/25/00

Applied Anthropology

Using Anthropology to Nursing

Medical Anthropology is dedicated to the relationship between human behaviour, societal life, and wellness within an anthropological context. It provides a forum for asking into how cognition, significance, support, power, and resource distribution are shaped and how, in bend, these discernible facts go on to determine forms of disease, experiences of wellness and unwellness, and the organisation of interventions. It focuses on many different subjects including the political ecology of disease, the interface of the micro- and macro-environments that affect wellness, the political relations of duty as it relates to wellness, gender and wellness, the moral, political and interpersonal contexts of bodily enduring, and the societal significances of disease classs and ideals of wellness. Focal points besides include the cultural and historical conditions that form medical patterns and policies, the societal organisation of clinical interactions, and the utilizations and effects of medical engineerings.

In using Anthropology to the profession of nursing I would be looking into wellness, disease, unwellness, and illness in human persons which would be undertaken from the holistic and cross-cultural position. This is typical of anthropology as a subject, that is, with an consciousness of their biological, cultural, lingual, and historical uniformity and fluctuation. As a nurse I would analyze the wellness, wellness jobs and human responses which occur as a consequence of life procedures. Emphasis would be placed on the nursing procedure as a systematic method of helping clients to achieve, recover and keep maximal functional wellness position.

Knowledge of cultural diverseness is critical at all degrees of nursing pattern. It is of the extreme importance for me to retrieve that ethnocentric attacks to nursing patterns are uneffective in run intoing the wellness and nursing demands of diverse cultural groups of clients. Having the cognition about civilizations and their impact on interactions with wellness attention is indispensable for nurses, whether they are practising in a clinical scene, instruction, research or disposal. Cultural diverseness addresses racial and cultural differences, nevertheless, these constructs or characteristics of the human experience are non synonymous. The altering demographics of the state will go on to increase the cultural diverseness of the United States population and those that have up to this point in clip that have been considered to be the minority will, combined, represent a national bulk.

The cognition and accomplishments associating to cultural diverseness that I have obtained from my class in Anthropology I believe will assist me to be able to beef up and broaden the wellness attention bringing system. Other civilizations are capable of supplying illustrations of a scope of options in services, bringing systems, conceptualisation of unwellness, and intervention modes. Cultural groups frequently utilize traditional wellness attention suppliers, identified by and respected within the group. Concepts of unwellness, health, and intervention modes evolve from a cultural position or universe position. Concepts of unwellness, wellness, and health are portion of the entire cultural belief system.

Knowing that civilization is one of the forming constructs upon which nursing is based and defined, it is of import for me to understand:

& # 183 ; how cultural groups understand life procedures ;

& # 183 ; how cultural groups define wellness and unwellness ;

& # 183 ; what cultural groups do to keep health ;

& # 183 ; what cultural groups believe to be the cause of unwellness ;

& # 183 ; how therapists cure and attention for members of cultural groups ; and

& # 183 ; how the cultural background of the nurse influences the manner in which attention is delivered.

It would be of import for me, as the nurse, to see specific cultural factors impacting on single clients and to acknowledge that intra cultural fluctuation means that each client must be assessed for single cultural differences.

Nurses bring their personal cultural heritage every bit good as the cultural and philosophical positions of their instruction into their professional scene. Therefore, it will be of import for me, as the nurse, to understand that nurse-patient brushs include the interaction of three cultural systems: the civilization of the nurse, the civilization of the client, and the civilization of the scene.

Entree to care can be improved by supplying culturally relevant, antiphonal services. Persons need to hold picks of bringing systems in seeking wellness attention. Nurses in clinical pattern must utilize their cognition of cultural diverseness to develop and implement culturally sensitive nursing attention. Nurses should, and make, take pride in their function as client advocators. Acknowledging cultural diverseness, incorporating cultural cognition, and moving, when possible, in a culturally appropriate mode will enable me, the nurse, to be more effectual in originating nursing appraisals and functioning as a client advocator.

I believe that all nursing course of study should include pertinent information about diverse wellness attention beliefs, values, and patterns. Such educational plans would show to nursing pupils that cultural beliefs and patterns are as built-in to the nursing procedure as are the physical and psycho-social factors. As a nurse decision maker I would further policies and processs that help to guarantee the entree to care that accommodates changing cultural beliefs. Nurse decision makers need to be knowing about and sensitive to the cultural diverseness among suppliers and consumers. Nurse research workers need to use the cross-cultural organic structure of cognition in order to inquire pertinent research inquiries. Through the geographic expedition of other civilizations, nurse research workers and practicians find that while civilizations differ, there are besides many similarities among groups. I, upon going a nurse, will be in a place to act upon professional policies and pattern in response to cultural diverseness.

Cultural diverseness in nursing pattern derives its conceptual base from nursing, other cross-cultural wellness subjects, and the societal scientific disciplines such as anthropology, sociology, and psychological science. Culture is conceptualized loosely to embrace the belief systems of a assortment of groups. Cultural diverseness refers to the differences between people based on a shared political orientation and valued set of beliefs, norms, imposts, and significances evidenced in a manner of life. Culture consists of forms of behaviour acquired and transmitted symbols, representing the typical accomplishment of human groups, including their incarnation in artefacts. The indispensable nucleus of civilization consists of historically derived and selected thoughts and particularly their affiliated values. Taking this into history, it is wholly apprehensible why the cognition of civilization is vitally of import to the ability of myself, upon going a nurse, every bit good as other wellness attention suppliers to supply the best wellness attention possible.

The impact of civilization as a causative influence on the perceptual experiences, readings and behaviours of individuals in specific cultural groups is of import. Issues such as cultural differences in specifying wellness and in planing interventions are besides of import. As cognition of specific civilizations is gained, cross-cultural comparing can take to acknowledgment of possible cosmopolitan facets every bit good.

Ideology is comprised of the thoughts of a group, their nature and beginning, and the philosophies, sentiments or ways of thought of a group. These are attached to an agreed upon set of beliefs or a credo. Valuess refer to the particularly favourable manner of sing the thoughts, behaviours, imposts, and establishments of a group as desirable, utile, admirable, of import, or true. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one & # 8217 ; s ain civilization is superior to all others. This belief is common to all cultural groups. All groups regard their ain civilization as non merely the best but besides the correct, moral, and merely manner of life. This belief is permeant, frequently unconscious and is imposed on every facet of daily interaction and patterns including wellness attention. It is this attitude which creates jobs between nurses and clients of diverse cultural groups.

Of the many things that I have learned during my class in Anthropology 201 and will transport with me into my nursing profession, the apprehension of and the regard that must be given when supplying wellness attention for people of other civilizations is most surely the most important. Critical scrutiny of the historical, socio-political, scientific, and cultural influences of a client & # 8217 ; s life is indispensable to supplying the best wellness attention possible. Ethnocentrism, though bing to some grade in all civilizations, has no topographic point in the nursing profession. One must be able to be as impersonal and impartial as possible. I believe the cognition that I have gained will help me in going the best nurse that I can perchance be sing civilizations other than my ain.