Communicating Across Cultures and Languages in the Health Care Setting

Communicating Across Cultures and Languages in the Health Care Setting
Author: Claire Penn
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2017-12-16
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 113758100X

This book offers a novel approach to understanding the complexities of communication in culturally and linguistically diverse health care contexts. It marks the culmination of two decades of research in South Africa, a context that has obvious application in a wider international climate given current globalization and migration trends. The authors draw from a large body of evidence based across different sites and illnesses, scrutinising both the language dynamics of intercultural health interactions and the perceptions and narratives of multiple participants. Including a range of theoretical, methodological and empirical considerations, the volume sheds light upon qualitative research methods and their application in the intercultural context. This book will be a valuable resource for health professionals, medical educators and language practitioners as well as students and scholars of discourse analysis and the medical humanities.

Health, Communication and Multicultural Communities

Health, Communication and Multicultural Communities
Author: Carmen Valero-Garcés
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 235
Release: 2014-10-21
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1443870218

"Communicating in multicultural settings is a field of central interest to those involved in ensuring access to healthcare. Ever-increasing migration requires access to essential legal, medical and social services. This book provides an overview of current issues in this field through a multi-faceted approach, situating the work of potential healthcare professionals and intercultural intermediaries in the broader context of public service providers and practitioners. The book is not oriented towards one population in particular; rather it is directed towards multiple groups, mainly to students of the health sciences and medical professionals interested in communicating with migrants and visitors, and those who have to work in multicultural settings. It is not a theoretical book, nor is it rule-based by any means. It is a handbook oriented towards reflection and practice resulting from years of experience training mediators, interpreters and translators working in minority languages within multicultural settings. It can be used for self-study and independent learning, but will also be extremely useful to teachers and trainers of future doctors and medical staff who seek materials or readings for their classes. Furthermore, it represents an excellent resource for mediators, interpreters and translators who want to learn more about communication in healthcare setting"--Provided by publisher.

Effective Communication in Multicultural Health Care Settings

Effective Communication in Multicultural Health Care Settings
Author: Gary L. Kreps
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Total Pages: 157
Release: 1994-04-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1452254001

This book provides insights into the complexities of multicultural relations in health care and demystifies the many cultural influences on health and health care to achieve its ultimate goal - to help people get the most they can out of health care and facilitate the promotion of public health.

Bilingual Health Communication

Bilingual Health Communication
Author: Elaine Hsieh
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 372
Release: 2016-02-05
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 131733065X

Winner of the NCA Health Communication 2021 Distinguished Book Award. This book examines interpreter-mediated medical encounters and focuses primarily on the phenomenon of bilingual health care. It highlights the interactive and coordinated nature of interpreter-mediated interactions. Elaine Hsieh has put together over 15 hours of interpreter-mediated medical encounters, interview data with 26 interpreters from 17 different cultures/languages, 39 health care providers from 5 clinical specialties, and surveys of 293 providers from 5 clinical specialties. The depth and richness of the data allows for the presentation of a theoretical framework that is not restricted by language combination or clinical contexts. This will be the first book of its kind that includes not only interpreters’ perspectives but also the needs and perspectives of providers from various clinical specialties. Bilingual Health Communication presents an opportunity to lay out a new theoretical framework related to bilingual health care and connects the latest findings from multiple disciplines. This volume presents future research directions that promise development for both theory and practice in the field.

Communicating Across Cultures

Communicating Across Cultures
Author: Carmen Valero-Garcés
Publisher: University Press of America
Total Pages: 217
Release: 2014-03-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0761861556

Communicating Across Cultures: A Coursebook on Interpreting and Translating in Public Services and Institutions is a manual which addresses the complex task of interpreting and translating through reflection and practice. The book originated from discussions with those who perform the work of an intermediary because they “know” the languages and cultures, and with those who would like to do this type of work, but who may require more training. Thus, it is directed at people who, due to their knowledge of two languages, serve as liaisons between immigrant communities, visitors, or foreigners and the societies that receive them. More precisely, it is directed at future professionals in public service translation and interpreting. Communicating Across Cultures will equip future professionals with the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools to act as linguistic, communicative, and cultural liaisons. It will also help improve the communication between the staff of medical, legal, educational, and administrative institutions and their foreign clients.

Unequal Treatment

Unequal Treatment
Author: Institute of Medicine
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 781
Release: 2009-02-06
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 030908265X

Racial and ethnic disparities in health care are known to reflect access to care and other issues that arise from differing socioeconomic conditions. There is, however, increasing evidence that even after such differences are accounted for, race and ethnicity remain significant predictors of the quality of health care received. In Unequal Treatment, a panel of experts documents this evidence and explores how persons of color experience the health care environment. The book examines how disparities in treatment may arise in health care systems and looks at aspects of the clinical encounter that may contribute to such disparities. Patients' and providers' attitudes, expectations, and behavior are analyzed. How to intervene? Unequal Treatment offers recommendations for improvements in medical care financing, allocation of care, availability of language translation, community-based care, and other arenas. The committee highlights the potential of cross-cultural education to improve provider-patient communication and offers a detailed look at how to integrate cross-cultural learning within the health professions. The book concludes with recommendations for data collection and research initiatives. Unequal Treatment will be vitally important to health care policymakers, administrators, providers, educators, and students as well as advocates for people of color.

The Healthcare Professional's Guide to Clinical Cultural Competence

The Healthcare Professional's Guide to Clinical Cultural Competence
Author: Rani Hajela Srivastava
Publisher: Elsevier Health Sciences
Total Pages: 366
Release: 2006-10-17
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 0779699602

With a focus on client-centred care, this book provides an introduction to developing cultural competence in the health care setting. A unique presentation covering both theory and practice, the book begins with a strong foundational model for understanding culture. It then introduces general knowledge on culture which can be provided to a variety of settings, and ends with clinical applications illustrating how to apply knowledge and awareness to a variety of populations. With contributions from twelve leading experts, material is drawn from a wide range of health care settings and has strong practical coverage throughout. Unique approach: looks at populations the way health care workers encounter them, not by ethno-cultural/religious labels Multidisciplinary approach to writing reflects a variety of perspectives and direct front-line experience Discussion is broad and inclusive, integrating different perspectives, but also makes visible the different paradigms used to approach the topic Case studies and questions encourage critical thinking and dialogue

Multilingual Healthcare

Multilingual Healthcare
Author: Christiane Hohenstein
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 352
Release: 2020-03-28
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 3658271205

This volume is the first to address multilingual healthcare communication around the globe and focuses on institutional, social and linguistic challenges and resources of the healthcare industry. It comprises studies from Canada, Australia, South Africa, Greenland, Italy, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, and aims to introduce new paths of communicative and methodological agendas, casting a critical view on current linguistic practices in healthcare, nursing and medical interactions. With increased personal mobility in a global society, the need for multilingual staff is on the rise in medical institutions and healthcare organisations, and communicative competencies and practices involving different languages pose challenges for medical doctors, healthcare staff and patients alike. Many studies have highlighted the crucial role played by interpreters and interpreting staff, but the diversity of language situations in different countries requires very different approaches and solutions. Additionally, it may not be possible to develop a single agenda of language services for different medical areas with different needs for counselling, with various forms of treatment that require explanation and the patient‘s informed consent and with varying approaches to the relationship between medical professionals and patients. How to best organise medical (digital) language services in countries as different as South Africa, Greenland, Germany, Belgium and Australia calls for a diversity of possible solutions. The current volume makes a variety of such solutions and practices available for medical staff and healthcare institutions faced with international patients and working with international medical staff. It makes the challenges palpable on an international scale in a way that comparisons may be drawn between different solutions as well as their socio-cultural and institutional implications. This volume is intended for policy makers, medical and healthcare practitioners, institutions, interpreters, teachers and students in professional multilingual healthcare.

Culturally Competent Compassion

Culturally Competent Compassion
Author: Irena Papadopoulos
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 209
Release: 2018-04-17
Genre: Medical
ISBN: 1317199928

Bringing together the crucially important topics of cultural competence and compassion for the first time, this book explores how to practise ‘culturally competent compassion’ in healthcare settings – that is, understanding the suffering of others and wanting to do something about it using culturally appropriate and acceptable caring interventions. This text first discusses the philosophical and religious roots of compassion before investigating notions of health, illness, culture and multicultural societies. Drawing this information together, it then introduces two invaluable frameworks for practice, one of cultural competence and one of culturally competent compassion, and applies them to care scenarios. Papadopoulos goes on to discuss: how nurses in different countries understand and provide compassion in practice; how students learn about compassion; how leaders can create and champion compassionate working environments; and how we can, and whether we should, measure compassion. Culturally Competent Compassion is essential reading for healthcare students and its combination of theoretical content and practice application provides a relevant and interesting learning experience. The innovative model for practice presented here will also be of interest to researchers exploring cultural competence and compassion in healthcare.

A Pragmatic Agenda for Healthcare

A Pragmatic Agenda for Healthcare
Author: Sarah Bigi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 405
Release: 2023-11-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027249377

This volume addresses the issue of pragmatic meaning and interpretation in communication contexts regarding health and does so by combining a series of diverse and complementary approaches, which together highlight the relevance of successfully shared understanding to achieve more accessible, inclusive, and sustainable healthcare systems. The volume is divided into five thematic sections: 1) Analytical approaches to health communication, 2) Intercultural and mediated communication, 3) Negotiation and meaning construction, 4) Expertise and common ground, 5) Uncertainty and evasive answers, bringing together a group of top scholars on the much-debated issue of shared understanding both at the micro-level of dialogues between professionals and patients, and the macro-level of institutional communication. In the variety of its contributions, it represents an ambitious attempt at setting pragmatics at the core of healthcare communication research and practice, by combining conceptual reflections on core topics in the field of pragmatics (among which are speech acts, common ground, ambiguity, implicitness), with discourse and linguistic analysis of real-world examples exploring various problems in health communication.