Spanish Heritage, Interview Example

The goal of this paper is to interview someone from Chinese or Spanish heritage. This is not an easy task because in today’s society it’s politically correct not to ask about ones heritage unless they offer the information. However, a good family friend who was excited to share her Mexican heritable and background. The interview was completed at a local coffee shop in a private booth that allowed us to speak freely. The context of the interview was concerning her family dealing with generations of diabetes in the family and experiences with the healthcare providers. The interviewee is the families’ historian, health consultant, caretaker and leader that documents their heritages and culture to ensure all everyone in the family knows the medical, cultural/ethnic background.The interviewee speaks Spanish and English and is a willing participant to share her culture family heritage and challenges with diabetes healthcare providers.

Diabetes and Healthcare Providers

The basic questions concerning the interview heritage generated about some interesting responses concerning her family’s battle with diabetes. One the reoccurring themes was healthcare industry and providers not being aware of the needs of the Mexican diabetes population. The primary disconnect was twofold because the interviewee family has some cultural bias concerning physicians and clinicians not understand their diabetic problems. The Mexican family did not believe that any healthcare professional that was not Mexican did not fully understand diabetic family problems. Secondly, the healthcare providers misconceptions and lack of Mexican cultural awareness. The situation explained by the clinician was providing her grandmother with some insulin oral prescription assuming she was not able to self-inject the insulin.

One of the treating Caucasian physicians was explaining to another physician intern that the Mexican grandmother may not be educated enough to complete self-injection. The diabetic physician’s cultural perception was a Mexican women of that age would not be intelligent enough to self-inject insulin. The physician’s judgement was bias because of his lack of culture understanding of the Mexican cultural. The physician admitted not being aware that our grandmother was the one who taught us how to do the self-injection.  This an example of the Campina-Bacote Model who defined cultural awareness as a self-examination of our own personal biases towards other cultures which has been acknowledged by a healthcare professional (EuroMed, 2015).

The family decided to request a family counseling meeting with the Caucasian physician to explain our experiences with diabetes, types of physicians and previous types of treatments and outcomes. The physician took the information from our meeting indicated he needed to do further research and the family counseling meeting could be schedule in the next 2 more weeks. The second meeting was successful and the Caucasian physician was well-educated on how to treat Mexican patients with diabetes. This was accomplished because the physician solicited professional advice from his experience diabetic peers that were diverse in treating different cultures. As result of studying this information to become more knowledgeable concerning the different cultures significance is an example of the Campina-Bacote Model of cultural knowledge (EuroMed, 2015).   The physician learned how to become more culturally sensitive while learning about culturally diverse groups, personal beliefs and understanding globally how the treatment diabetes differ for diverse ethnic populations.

Transcultural Nursing

The question was asked how the Mexican family finds healthcare providers that understand the dynamics of their heritage, cultural and diabetic treatment needs. The interviewee found a provider that had a diverse and cultural environment in the physician’s office. They noticed immediately that the entire staff was bi-lingual allowing them help with accurate diabetes assessment overcoming the language barrier. The success of the healthcare treatment plan was contributed to the neighborhood office hiring a diverse staff from Mexican, Argentina, and Puerto Rico and a few head nurses that had worked on several different continents. The doctor has family counselors that focused on our facility cultural values and beliefs. The continuous pursuit by a healthcare professional to seek cultural understanding of ones heritage that gives them the ability to identify and treat those with diverse, unique and ethnic family backgrounds (Camphina-Bacote, 2014).  The adaptation and academic study which focuses on the diverse values of one’s heritable, cultural beliefs and families values shows an appreciation of Transcultural nursing (Savage, 2008). The need for transcultural nursing is in greater demand become of the exponential growth of the multicultural society.

Dominant Cultural Beliefs

The interviewee was asked questions concerning some of their problems with the United States dominate cultural beliefs that were different from the Mexican culture belief. The interview shared that often they faced the American dominant culture beliefs such language is English, religion is Christianity, Americans diverse mix of ethnic races. In contract, Mexicans are a multi-ethnic people whoseorigins are from Mexico. The Mexican cultural tradition of family first instead of Americans profession first before family. The Mexican primary language is Spanish that is spoken in Mexico with different dialects. The Mexican religion does not have an official religion but Roman Catholicism is regarded as the primary religion for 82% of the Mexican populations (Buzzle, 2015). It has been proven that dominant cultural beliefs can create gaps in society concerning social and healthcare issues (Blackburn, 2015). The interviewee agreed that the dominant cultures in healthcare has some gaps that have not addressed the issues with improve outcomes of Mexican patients with diabetes. In contrast, the dominate American culture perception is the primary problem is language, instead of acknowledging that decisions made by physicians or nurses are based on cultural biases.

Professional Literature

The professional literature ofCamphina-Bacote ((2014) supported the theories above with thee Campina-Bacote model that explained patterns of caring, personal beliefs, values and the worldview. One the patterns that was discussed with the interviewee how their patterns of caring for Mexican families is far different that the American dominant culture.  The observation was made that many Americans discuss the importance of Long-Term healthcare coverage for their elderly parents while the Mexican more naturally accepts the responsibility to care for their elder in their homes. In comparison, to the literature of Campina-Bacote was in the same opinion was the interviewee that the healthcare industry needs to address the cultural bias in treatment of diseases for different cultures.

Conclusions

The Mexican family still has problems with adapting to the dominant culture because they are stressed when a critical healthcare decision is made for the family. The family is not always confident that the decision was made based on the best treatment. The hope of the family that more healthcare providers take the time to hire Transcultural nurses to help improve the diabetic outcomes for Mexicans and other diverse groups. As a future professional the important lesson learn from this interview is sharing all pertinent family healthcare history. The more information the physician has obtained, the outcomes will be improved.

References

Camphina-Bacote, J. (2014). The process of cultural competence in the delivery of healthcare services. Retrieved from http://www.ojccnh.org/project/campinha-bacote.shtml

Blackburn, F. (2015). ‘Cultural Competence is for Everyone’: Cultural Competence in the United States Library and Information Sector. Is It Relevant to Australian Libraries?Australian Academic & Research Libraries, 46(3), 176-193. doi:10.1080/00048623.2015.1063800

Buzzle. (2015).Difference between Mexican and American culture. Retrieved from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/difference-in-mexican-and-american-culture.html#people

EuroMed. (2015).A model for care for cultural competence. Retrieved from http://www.euromedinfo.eu/a-model-of-care-for-cultural-competence.html/

Reimann, J. O., Talavera, G. A., Salmon, M., Nuñez, J. A., & Velasquez, R. J. (2004). Cultural competence among physicians treating Mexican Americans who have diabetes: a structural model. Social Science & Medicine, 592195-2205. doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.03.025

Savage, S. (2008).Transcultural nursing: Its importance in nursing practice. Retrieved from “http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1372127/transcultural_nursing_its_importance_in_nursingpractice/”>http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1372127/transcultural_nursing_its_importance_in_nursingpractice/