Question

A tribal woman comes to a medical clinic saying that she had a bromo. The medical doctor said that she had a liver infection, prescribed her many medications and the woman died. The elders were angry and believed the medical doctor gave her the wrong thing for bromo, but the medical doctor claims the tribal woman did not come to the clinic soon enough.
Do you feel that the doctor at the medical clinic was culturally competent? Why or why not?
How does this story illustrate where cultural competence and the law could potentially collide?

Answer 1

Bromo is a dose of proprietary sedative consist bromide
Modern medicine not accepted in tribal culture, there will be a lack of personal hygiene, education, and self-care. Tribal people believe indigenous herbs and plants for medicational use than western medicine. Health care intervention should focus on tribal culture. Tribals always suffer from various illnesses like malnutrition, gastrointestinal disorder, iodine deficiency, etc. There are challenges for health care providers to deal with tribal people to deliver culturally competent care. As a health care provider, they should deliver health care service to meet social religious, cultural needs of patients and families. Doctor, in this case, was not culturally competent, it provided poor quality care and poor outcome. As a health care provider for the various cultural group, they must focus on the patient body, spirit, and mind.
Culturally competent health care services should focus on cultural beliefs, ethnic, racial, socioeconomic status of the patient. cultural competenc reduce racial and ethnic health disparities. Trusting relationship and communication skills with the client can help to collect accurate information. Lack of communication between patients and health care providers can create miscommunication and misunderstanding. Inadequate culturally competent can lead to diagnostic error and wrong treatment and low satisfaction, failure to take into account different responses with medication use, inadequate patient adherence on prescription drugs, self-care and followup visits.