Cultural Factors

Author(s):  
Megan Crowley-Matoka

This article explores the cultural features of death and dying. Following a broad discussion of death as a problem—materially, socially, and existentially—to which diverse responses have been developed historically and cross-culturally, the concept of culture is defined and explored in terms of the way it has been taken up in the practice of medicine more generally and in discussions about death in particular. Arguing that the “problem of death” in America has increasingly come to be identified as a “problem of culture,” the article takes two classic ethnographies of dying in American hospitals—spaced forty years apart—as a strategic comparative lens through which to examine how key cultural features of death and dying have (and have not) shifted over a particularly critical period in the history of US health care.

2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 8-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edwin Van Teijlingen ◽  
Cecilia Benoit ◽  
Ivy Bourgeault ◽  
Raymond DeVries ◽  
Jane Sandall ◽  
...  

It is widely accepted that policy-makers (in Nepal and elsewhere) can learn valuable lessons from the way other countries run their health and social services. We highlight some of the specific contributions the discipline of sociology can make to cross-national comparative research in the public health field. Sociologists call attention to often unnoticed social and cultural factors that influence the way national reproductive health care systems are created and operated. In this paper we address questions such as: ‘Why do these health services appear to be operating successfully in one country, but not another?’; ‘What is it in one country that makes a particular public health intervention successful and how is the cultural context different in a neighbouring country?’ The key examples in this paper focus on maternity care and sex education in the Netherlands and the UK, as examples to highlight the power of cross-national research. Our key messages are: a) Cross-national comparative research can help us to understand the design and running of health services in one country, say Nepal, by learning from a comparison with other countries, for example Sri Lanka or India. b) Cultural factors unique to a country affect the way that reproductive health care systems operate. c) Therefore,we need to understand why and how services work in a certain cultural context before we start trying to implement them in another cultural context.


2021 ◽  
pp. 13-32
Author(s):  
Omar Dewachi ◽  
Fouad Gehad Marei ◽  
Jonathan Whittall

This chapter outlines how the history of health care in Syria has shaped the way in which wartime health care has been delivered and controlled. The chapter analyzes the claim by humanitarian organizations to a form of neutrality in the Syrian war, which was ultimately incompatible with the way the Syrian state and the opposition saw aid delivery as part of the battle for statehood. It also mentions how service providers to areas controlled by the opposition were seen by the Syrian government as complicit in directly challenging the legitimacy of the state. The chapter looks at opposition groups that co-opted humanitarian assistance to enforce their own legitimacy to the population.


Author(s):  
Stephanie M. Wurdock

In a time when health care reform and the limits on First Amendment freedom of religion are persistent subjects of debate, Catholic restrictions on health care have made it to the forefront of public concern. Catholic providers prohibit a variety of medical procedures traditionally viewed by the Church as contrary to the tenet of respect for human life and dignity. Many Americans view this as an unconstitutional restriction on care. As a result, the growing presence of Catholic providers, namely hospitals, has become a major point of contention in many communities. The potential barrier to medical services raises concern not only for potential patients, but also for medical students whose chosen specialty may include a prohibited service. This article identifies some difficulties that may emerge for current and prospective medical students and advocates that both groups should be required to contemplate (1) their personal beliefs as they pertain to religiously-restricted care, and (2) the effects those beliefs will have on their medical education and training. This article also gives a comprehensive background of the history of the Catholic hospital system in America and analyzes the federal "conscience clauses" and their implications for the instruction and practice of medicine. Finally, this article concludes that a mandatory bioethics curriculum is absolutely crucial to ensure adequate ethics training for medical students.


Author(s):  
Eelco F.M. Wijdicks

Cinema, MD argues that within cinema there is a history of medicine—one version in the many different histories of medicine. How did filmmakers write a history of medicine? This book discusses how cinema depicts medicine, in all its glory and all its failures, and what can we learn from it. It offers an account of all the major films with medical themes. The book asks a number of critical questions, such as why scriptwriters and directors chose the subjects, the plots, the cast, and the images that they did. Films have covered a wide range of medical topics, depicting not only physicians, nurses, and other health-care personnel working in hospitals, clinics, and asylums but also epidemics, diseases and disabilities, mental illness, and addictions. Films have portrayed medical feats such as vaccinations and organ transplantations. Filmmakers also have tackled subjects such as death and dying, medical experimentation, and rare diseases, as well as documenting criticism of the medical status quo.


Author(s):  
Daisy Fancourt

This chapter traces the origins of the use of arts in health, from the earliest artefacts found in caves dating back c.40,000 years ago. It explores the use of the arts in healing rituals and early theories of medicine from the Ancient world, and charts how the relationship between art and health shifted during the Middle Ages as the practice of medicine moved from monasteries to universities. It discusses how the Enlightenment led to more rationale scientific accounts about the place of the arts in medicine and how the rise of psychiatry fostered new opportunities for integrating the arts within health care. Finally, it considers how twentieth-century attitudes to medicine have provided the foundations for the field as it exists today. Situating modern-day practice within this historical context can shed new light on how the arts are perceived and valued within health.


2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre Fetherstonhaugh ◽  
Rhonda Nay ◽  
Mandy Heather

This paper describes the development of a partnership between a university clinical school and a sub-acute health care facility in Melbourne, Australia. A brief history of nursing education is given to provide a background for the development of this collaborative model. The paper explores the partnership, what it has achieved and continues to achieve, as well as the challenges that have been faced along the way.


Author(s):  
Stéve Sainlaude ◽  
Don H. Doyle

France’s involvement in the American Civil War was critical to its unfolding, but the details of the European power’s role remain little understood. Here, Stève Sainlaude offers the first comprehensive history of French diplomatic engagement with the Union and the Confederate States of America during the conflict. Drawing on archival sources that have been neglected by scholars up to this point, Sainlaude overturns many commonly held assumptions about French relations with the Union and the Confederacy. As Sainlaude demonstrates, no major European power had a deeper stake in the outcome of the conflict than France. Reaching beyond the standard narratives of this history, Sainlaude delves deeply into questions of geopolitical strategy and diplomacy during this critical period in world affairs. The resulting study will help shift the way Americans look at the Civil War and extend their understanding of the conflict in global context.


Author(s):  
Jana Malinová ◽  
Marek Petráš ◽  
Alexander M. Čelko

The aim of this serological survey was to assess the persistence of measles antibodies among health care workers (HCWs) at risk of incidental measles. A prospective study of measles-specific antibodies in serum samples obtained from a total of 2782 participants aged 19–89 years was conducted between May 2018 and December 2019. The seropositivity rate of 93.7% (95% CI: 92.4–94.9%) in fully vaccinated participants aged 19–48 years was significantly lower than that of 98.0% (95% CI: 96.5–99.0%) in participants naturally immunised before 54 years. A cohort of those born in 1971–1975, vaccinated predominantly with one dose, showed lower seropositivity persistence (86.6%) than those fully vaccinated with two doses or naturally immunised. Otherwise, seropositivity was not markedly influenced by sex, age, smoking status, overweight, obesity or concomitant disease. The presence of sufficient antibody levels in a high proportion of HCWs irrespective of the way they acquired immunity is a favourable finding for managing incidental measles; hence, in the presence of a risk of a measles outbreak, it would be possible to perform targeted vaccination of only at-risk HCWs with a history of incomplete vaccination or missing information about the way in which immunity is acquired.


Author(s):  
David Ephraim

Abstract. A history of complex trauma or exposure to multiple traumatic events of an interpersonal nature, such as abuse, neglect, and/or major attachment disruptions, is unfortunately common in youth referred for psychological assessment. The way these adolescents approach the Rorschach task and thematic contents they provide often reflect how such experiences have deeply affected their personality development. This article proposes a shift in perspective in the interpretation of protocols of adolescents who suffered complex trauma with reference to two aspects: (a) the diagnostic relevance of avoidant or emotionally constricted Rorschach protocols that may otherwise appear of little use, and (b) the importance of danger-related thematic contents reflecting the youth’s sense of threat, harm, and vulnerability. Regarding this last aspect, the article reintroduces the Preoccupation with Danger Index ( DI). Two cases are presented to illustrate the approach.


Author(s):  
Christoph Klimmt

This comment briefly examines the history of entertainment research in media psychology and welcomes the conceptual innovations in the contribution by Oliver and Bartsch (this issue). Theoretical perspectives for improving and expanding the “appreciation” concept in entertainment psychology are outlined. These refer to more systematic links of appreciation to the psychology of mixed emotions, to positive psychology, and to the psychology of death and dying – in particular, to terror management theory. In addition, methodological challenges are discussed that entertainment research faces when appreciation and the experience of “meaning for life” need to be addressed in empirical studies of media enjoyment.


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