Review of iPhone App about World Cultures

Posted by on Jun 13, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments I recently came across an iPhone app called “World Travelers Customs & Cultures” developed by Hooked in Motion, LLC. The app, though designed for use by travelers, might be a useful culture-specific information tool in other cross-cultural situations as well. It offers general information for over 165 countries on greetings, communication styles, personal space and touching, eye...
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Key Determinants of Heritage Consistency in Cross-Cultural Patient Care

Posted by on Jun 13, 2011 in Blog, Cultural Health Beliefs + Behaviors, Special Topics | 0 comments Culturally-responsive providers consistently work to develop awareness of cultural norms, including their own and those of western medical culture. They combine this awareness with an understanding of the dimensions of culture to more easily identify variations in patterns of communication and health beliefs/behaviors of patients. The most responsive providers explore health within the full...
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Literacy, Health Literacy & Family Culture: One Woman Refugee’s Story of Seeking Health Care In Denver

Posted by on Apr 18, 2011 in Blog, Special Topics | 1 comment   If your American family story is like mine… your ancestors were probably voluntary immigrants to this country, not refugees. My maternal grandfather came over from Poland at the turn of the last century, knowing eight languages, but not one of them English. He was thirteen, alone, with just a note hung around his neck with a destination written on it. In honor of his memory, I wanted...
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Isn’t it confusing? Yes, it isn’t.

Posted by on Mar 29, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments Didn’t I get myself all turned around today? During a presentation to a group of first-year residents (we were talking about phrasing questions to elicit good responses from patients) I tried to give an example of what not to do. I tried to start a sentence with a negative and then show its potential for confusion. Well, I did create an example of confusion. Shouldn’t I now try to...
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Eliciting Quality Patient Responses in Cross-Cultural Care

Posted by on Mar 23, 2011 in Blog | 0 comments The cultural worlds created by humans are not controlled by universal laws of science; each culture operates according to its own internal dynamic. Even members of a given culture acquire most of what they know in the process of growing up. Relating to other people isn’t learned the way, for example, disease theory is learned. So culture can’t be distilled into learned facts and doctors...
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