Why must they know the difference between “hot” and “cold” and yin and yang?
The perplexing questions—
■ Why must health care deliverers—nurses, physicians, public health and social workers, and other health care professionals—study culture, ethnicity, religion, and become culturally competent?
■ Why must they know the difference between “hot” and “cold” and yin and yang?
■ Why must they be concerned with the patient’s failure to practice what professionals believe to be good preventive medicine, with the patient’s failure to follow a given treatment regimen, or with the patient’s failure to seek medical care during the initial phase of an illness?
■ Why is there a difference between curing and HEALING? —have now been explored and selected answers presented.
There is little disagreement that health care services in this country are unevenly distributed and that the poor and the emerging majority get the short end of the stick in terms of the care they receive (or do not receive). The appar- ent health disparities are a reality, as are the demographic and social disparities in areas of housing, employment, education, and opportunity. Just as there is the need to understand the people who comprise our multicultural society, there is also the need to understand new immigrants as more and more people flock to this country. Yet it is often maintained that when health care is provided, people fail to use it or use it inappropriately. Why is this seeming paradox so?