Cultural Beliefs

Culture

• shared beliefs/behaviors/customs/practices/traditions

  • language, food, religion, clothing/dress, social roles, arts, architecture

  • health-healing

• w/in community

• shapes values → shapes sought medical care

Health-Related Cultural Beliefs

• fasting - religious + health practice (Catholicism & Islam)

• vegetarianism - health + moral choice

• circumcision (Jewish & Christian)

• hot/cold imbalance → health/illness (Mexican)

• spiritual energy (Asian & Indigenous)

Indigenous Ethical Perspectives

Feitosa 2022

• Collectivity > Individuality

• Reciprocity

• Stewardship & Natural symbiosis

Chattopadhyay & deVries 2014

• western values (individual autonomy) → mainstream bioethics

Cultural Relativism

• honor/respect other cultural beliefs/practice → relative “right ways”

• ethical limits

• variation in individual perspectives (same + diff culture)

Case Example - Non-Disclosure & Food

• Chinese Families - unshared diagnosis → patient (psychological distress worsens health)

• Dietary habits - reflect personal values/lives/culture

  • Family brings food against medical needs

  • Family brings food important to health cope

Cultural Humility

Tervalon & Murray Garcia 1998

• self-introspect

• interpersonal stance

• open to differences in lived experience/priorities/customs/values

3 Tenets - reconcile value conflict

• lifelong learning + critical self-reflection

• recognize + challenge power imbalance

• institutional accountability

Ethics & Local Healing Practices

Chary & Sargent 2016

• international physician obligation

  • potentially harmful medical interventions in other places

  • intervene vs respect culture/collaboration → pt may choose local healing practice

  • balance beneficence*** → principlist approaches may not apply well

Medical Pluralism

• access healthcare / hold health beliefs across multiple medical systems

Examples

• physician prescription + acupuncturist releif

• orthopedic surgery + pastor blessing

• cold decongestant + soup remedy

• biomedicine fail → folk healers

Biomedicine

• cultural system → holds body/health beliefs/values

• modern medicine

• based on bioscientific body understanding

Examples

• biological defects/deficits → disease

• mind X body/brain

• technology advancements

• extensive formal education → expertise

• lived experience X expertise