Question

PROMPT:

Since this is a medical terminology course, we have not really talked much about diversity and gaps in patient care. However, you do engage in active learning activities, which simulate interaction with patients. One thing that is hard to cover in an online class is just how diverse the world really is and how diversity impacts patient care. However, many of you will be going into the health profession. Others will go into the field of health educator.

Use your creative thinking skills as well as your experiences in this class far in order to describe a situation where a health educator may have to advocate for increased patient care and patient education. Keep this in mind, how easy has it been for you to learn medical terms (medical jargon) so far? How easy do you think it is for a patient to understand medical jargon in a situation where he/she is notified that he/she is ill and needs further medical treatment? How intimidating could it be for a patient, diagnosed with an illness, to hear terms he/she has never heard before at the same time as receiving news of a diagnosis. (This diagnosis could be cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or anything else you consider relevant). What if a patient could not read, hear, or see? What if a patient could not understand the dominant language being spoken, and he/she did not have access to a translator? What if an adult patient had learning differences or could not read above a 4th to 6th grade level? Why would it be important to be able to explain a scenario in medical language to doctors and staff but regular (lay people’s) language when dealing with patients from diverse backgrounds?

DIRECTIONS

As an advocate, health educators need to make sure that patients understand the information being presented to them. With advocacy in mind, please follow the prompt below, and please limit your response to a maximum of two paragraphs (10 to 14 sentences). However, write the paragraphs as though you were a health educator who is tasked with making sure that the patient understands his or her condition in the simplest language possible. You do not need to site sources for this assignment, but you should write it in your own words. Please focus your responses on a patient’s point of view and how a health educator advocate for patient care in diverse situations

Answer 1

Being educated and having an understanding in the field of medicine, made it easy for us to understand medical terminology. But positioning ourself as a commoner patient, it would be difficult for us to understand our illness in terms of medical vocabulary. Maybe the diagnosis of the patient is a simple hypertension, but for the patient who is not educated, who doesn't know or heard of such terms and knowing that he is unwell, suffering from some kind of illness, even the simple term hypertension sounds like a non curable disease and can cause fright, panic, stress and worry. If a health practitioner can explain to patient his llness in very simple terms so that he understands his situation and further plan on measures to take care of himself. The stress and fright if the patient can be reduced by assuring him of recovery if the treatment regime is followed properly.

Being a health educator or medical staff, we should be aware that the society we live in is not all painted in black and white but have a diverse set of colours, that is not all the people in society are same, some are educated some are not, some maybe facing a different set of problem, some maybe too shy to come out with their problem, some maybe to frightened that even a simple fever rises panic in them. Being in such a diverse society we should be ready to face all the diversities, and make the patient's time in hospital not filled with dread for life. The more the patient understands about his illness the more will the patient be able to co-operate and the easier it will be for us to approach with a hassle free treatment. If a clinic is located in an area where the dominant language is some other language, it would be difficult for us to understand the patient's complaints if we don't understand that language and thus hampering the quality of the treatment. In the same way if the patient doesn't understand the language the practitioner addresses then it would be raise panic in patient and also effect the treatment. Thus a practitioner should atleast have a bit of knowledge on the local languages of the area or have a staff member or health educator from the local community so that they can explain to the patient in lay man's terms. Thus whatever might be the situation the health educator must be ready and be able to advocate patients needs such as develop programs and materials on health topics, training programs for community health workers and other health professionals, evaluation of effectiveness of the program, collection and analysis of data education of the community and discussion of the community health needs and concerns