(Ideally), everyone, regardless of race or ethnicity will receive the same medical care. But sometimes equal treatment is not enough. As Dr. Pauline Chen explores in her latest Doctor and Patient column, an understanding of a patient’s family history and cultural background can help identify the (unique) needs of an (individual) (patient). Cultural awareness is about more than just risk for certain problems, like hypertension in (African-Americans) or liver disease in Asians. Culture also affects patient communication, adherence to medication and family support. Clinicians who are (unaware) of cultural influences may not only miss important medical implications for a patient but can (also) inadvertently exacerbate an often already tenuous therapeutic relationship. “From the statistics in the literature,” said Marjorie Kagawa-Singer, a nurse and professor at the School of Public Health of the University of (California), Los Angeles, “adherence to a medication or a treatment regimen is usually less than 50 percent. But that figure is further (exacerbated) when there are cultural variations.”
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