When West meets East: a short-term immersion experience in South Korea (original) (raw)
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BMC Health Services Research
Background: We developed a 41-item tool measuring cultural differences in healthcare as perceived by foreign patients visiting South Korea. Methods: The tool was tested on 256 foreign patients who visited three tertiary hospitals in Seoul, South Korea. Content validity was explored by two physicians and eight nurses working in an international healthcare department. Structural validity was tested via exploratory factor analysis and by testing two hypotheses: (1) there are perceived cultural differences between the South Korean healthcare and those of foreign patients' home countries (one-sample t-test); and, (2) Perceived cultural differences vary among language groups (analysis of variance). We also calculated Cronbach's alpha. Results: The content validity index of the tool was 0.97. Exploratory factor analysis identified seven significant factors: hospital care and services, food, the healthcare system, communication, the healthcare facility, religion, and cultural values. The overall Cronbach's alpha for the tool was 0.96, indicating very high internal consistency. We found that foreign patients visiting South Korean hospitals perceived that the healthcare culture differed significantly from that of their home country. The perceived cultural differences varied significantly by language group. Conclusions: Nurses can use our new tool to understand the cultural differences of foreign patients and provide them with culturally competent nursing care.
This, that, and the other. Managing illness in a first-generation Korean-American family
The Western journal of medicine, 1992
The use of Western medicine and of holistic traditional medicine and healing rituals is common in Korean-American families with a chronically ill member. I present a case as an example of the complexity of health management in first-generation Korean-American immigrants. Immigration and acculturation issues, Confucian-related sociocultural and psychological factors, and the psychiatric diagnosis of Western specialists all elicited family conflict leading to emotional and physiologic distress.
Hawaii Medical Journal, 2010
The need for physicians formally trained to deliver care to diverse patient populations has been widely advocated. Utilizing a validated tool, Weissman and Betancourt's Cross-Cultural Care Survey, the aim of this current study was to compare surgery and family medicine residents' perceptions of their preparedness and skillfulness to provide high quality cross-cultural care. Past research has documented differences between the two groups' reported impressions of importance and level of instruction received in cross-cultural care. Twenty surgery and 15 family medicine residents participated in the study. Significant differences were found between surgery and family medicine residents on most ratings of the amount of training they received in cross-cultural skills. Specifically, family medicine residents reported having received more training on: 1) determining how patients want to be addressed, 2) taking a social history, 3) assessing their understanding of the cause of illness, 4) negotiating their treatment plan, 5) assessing whether they are mistrustful of the health care system and/or doctor, 6) identifying cultural customs, 7) identifying how patients make decisions within the family, and 8) delivering services through a medical interpreter. One unexpected finding was that surgery residents, who reported not receiving much formal cultural training, reported higher mean scores on perceived skillfulness (i.e. ability) than family medicine residents. The disconnect may be linked to the family medicine residents' training in cultural humility — more knowledge and understanding of cross-cultural care can paradoxically lead to perceptions of being less prepared or skillful in this area.
Self-Orientalization in the East Asian Medical Community
2021
Traditional medical practices have yielded to modern Western Allopathic Medicine in much of the world. However, Traditional East Asian Medicine (aka Traditional Chinese Medicine) which includes Acupuncture, Asian Herbalism, Asian Bodywork, and Meditative Breathing Practices (Taijiquan / Qigong) has grown in popularity around the world. In the United States, Traditional East Asian Medicine has entered mainstream culture, becoming licensed as a type of healthcare service. The development of this type of medicine in the United States began in the late nineteenth century with Asian immigration, but in the latter part of the twentieth century grew from a localized ethnic enclave based cultural practice into a larger social phenomenon reactive to socio cultural dynamics in the medical industrial complex. However, intrinsic in this rise and integration with majority culture has been the inculcation of Orientalized attitudinal poles that rely on stereotypical, trivialized, and racist interp...
The healthcare experiences of Koreans living in North Carolina: a mixed methods study
Health & Social Care in The Community, 2014
What is known about this topic • Koreans constitute one of the fastest growing minority groups in American society. • Few studies have examined health concerns of Korean immigrants in regions with relatively small immigrant populations. What this paper adds • Despite high educational levels, only half of the participants had health insurance, and most participants lacked English language skills to communicate with healthcare providers and to understand the U.S. healthcare system. • There is a need for culturally appropriate healthcare services and community outreach programmes networking with Korean churches and Korean Associations. • Healthcare workers should be trained to help Korean immigrants with their health literacy so that linguistically appropriate and accessible services can be provided to those with low health literacy.
Medical students interact with multicultural patients to learn cultural diversity
Korean Journal of Medical Education, 2018
The aim was to present our experiences implementing a cultural diversity (CD) education program. Methods: The authors held a 4-hour CD class for third-year medical students. The aim of the class was to facilitate students to realize and reflect on the importance of CD on healthcare delivery in Korea. The class was comprised of an orientation about CD in Korea, physicians and multicultural guests sharing their experiences with students, small group discussion, and Q&A panel with multicultural guests. Students provided written feedback for program evaluation. Authors classified their comments qualitatively. Results: Students mostly responded positively to the class with a significant focus on interacting with the multicultural guests. Students realized the significance of CD in healthcare and reflected deeply on their discussion with the multicultural patients. Students needed more time to interact with multicultural guests from a greater range of cultures represented in Korea. Most did not need English interpretation. Conclusion: The aim of the class was achieved. Medical students' interaction with multicultural patients may promote the students' understanding and reflection about CD in health care.
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine, 2013
The aim of this study was to examine the perspectives on the options for the integration of western and traditional Korean medical services among three types of medical doctors with different disciplines in Korea. We surveyed and analyzed responses from 167 conventional Western medicine (WM), 135 traditional Korean medicine (KM), and 103 dual-licensed (DL) doctors who can practice both. All three kinds of doctors shared similar attitude toward license unitarization. KM doctors most strongly agreed on the need of the cooperative practice (CP) between KM and WM and on the possibility of license unitarization among three groups. DL doctors believed that CP is currently impracticable and copractice is more efficient than CP. WM doctors presented the lowest agreement on the need of CP and showed lower expectation for DL doctors as mediators between WM and KM than others. This study showed the difference of perspectives on the options for the integrative medical services among three diffe...
The effects of culture on illness behavior and medical care
General Hospital Psychiatry, 1993
This paper examines the effects of culture on illness behavior and medical care by contrasting the differences between American and Asian cultures. We examine the differences in definitions of self and patferns of self-other interaction between these two cuifures and how these differences influence the interpretation of illness experience, illness behavior, and interactions among physicians, patients, and families. We propose that understanding the patients' self-concepts and patterns of self-other relationships, which are largely culturally determined, is essential for an objective understanding of the patients' experience of illness, and can profoundly affect the quality of the physicianpatient relationship and medical care.
In a national study of resident physicians in their final year of training, few residents reported feeling unprepared in a general sense to care for patients from racial and ethnic minorities and from diverse cultures. Yet far more felt unprepared to care for patients with specific cultural characteristics, including those who mistrust the U.S. health care system or who have health beliefs or practices at odds with western medicine. This gap in perceived levels of preparedness indicates shortcomings in graduate medical education that need to be addressed. Recommended reforms include integration of cross-cultural training into curricula (both during and after medical school) in accordance with standard principles, the appropriate training of faculty (to ensure useful instruction, as well as mentors and role models), and the mandatory and formal evaluation of residents' cross-cultural communication skills.