Customer Reviews

Caring for Patients from Different Cultures, 2/E

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As Director of Nursing for a small, rural county health department, I was looking for cultural information on dealing with Hispanic populations. What this book covers is all of that and more.It was a real eye opener! Ms. Galanti gives case synopses on caring for patients from many diverse cultures.She covers cultural differences with nutrition, religion, family support, response to pain, and a wealth of other topics.I purchased this book for our staff library, and a copy for myself and my nurse-mother. Anyone who deals with people from other cultures(not just health care providers) needs to read this book!

This is the best book I've read on this subject, and I've read a few. Galanti writes with the clarity and simplicity of someone who knows her subject well, and she illustrates her points about cultural misunderstandings that impact health care with the fascinating true experiences of medical professionals. An extremely valuable and interesting book that holds the reader's attention from beginning to end!

My students loved the real life situations in this book!
I recommend that teachers use this to incorporate multiculturalism in a very meaningful way in biology classes, and welcome ideas about how others use it. The way I did it was to present the problem, have students brainstorm what they might do, and then reveal the resolution (or lack of one) from the book. I am so glad I found this while browsing the medical section. You are not likely to find a used copy for sale because the stories are so interesting to everyone.

I bought this book to do research for a class and from the time I opend it I could not put it down. What a facinating read into different cultures. Highly reccomend to anyone who is intersted in their medical care of people from other cultures or religious groups.

I have a long-standing interest in cultural issues in healthcare and so I eagerly bought this book. It's in the 3rd edition--I figured it must be good.

It is appalling! You can turn to almost any page and find a portayal of a person from a minority culture that is presented in such a way that it makes the person sound like an idiot. Not just immigrant and ethnic minority patients--immigrant medical professionals, too.

In addition, she does not modify her gross generalizations by saying, "HIGHLY OBSERVANT Muslims" or "LESS-ACCULTURATED Mexicans" or even "SOME Chinese." No, for Galanti, she generalizes about Muslims, Mexicans and Chinese, with no gradations according to people's country of origin and degrees of orthodoxy (e.g. Muslims), generations in this country, fluency in English, etc.

I am afraid this volume will perpetuate stereotypes. Yes, it may be "fun reading" for people who know nothing about the topic, but they will end up with a view of "how weird those people are!" rather than either any true cultural understanding or a better sense of how to adapt their own practice to meet their patients' needs.

i have never returned a book in my life--this is going to be the first.

For alternative choices on related topics consider:
Culture & Clinical Care (Lipson & Dibble)
Ethnicity & Family THerapy (McGoldrick)
Child Abuse & Culture: Working with diverse families (Fontes)
The spirit Catches You and YOu Fall Down (Fadiman).

Stay away from this one!

Cautioning the reader not to stereotype, and then presenting them with a chapter full of outdated stereotypes would be funny if it weren't so irresponsible.

The author apologizes in the book's preface, for using "extreme" examples of cultural behavior for her case studies. She explains that she is using generalizations that may not fit everyone perfectly. She then proceeds to reinforce the negative stereotypes of every culture, using sources from the 60s and 70s in some cases and in others, throwing in her own misguided opinions. How can she not see that those "generalizations" are part of the problem, that people store them subconsciously and will use them to stereotype people without even meaning to? Most of those reading this book are not doing so because they have a lot of real life examples to draw from.

In this cultural competence manual the author teaches us that African Americans will, as a rule apparently, interpret benign statements as racism and start screaming and throwing dishes. She presents, as evidence, her student's anecdote of what 12 black people maybe said. That is not at all a credible source for a belief so damaging on a subject so nuanced and complex. And black hypersensitivity is already a stereotype that people believe, why on earth would someone want to reinforce that? As a black person, I do not want a health care provider to be kind to me out of fear of what I might do or say or throw. Nor do I want legitimate concerns to be interpreted as covert accusations of racism.

I saw enormous errors in the author's "generalizations, not stereotypes" of many cultures, but decided that if nothing else, this book taught me the importance of speaking only from my own experience. If the author did not find it necessary to consult with actual members of the cultures represented before publishing, she should have kept to the basic concepts and left the specifics alone.

I used this book to help prepare a lecture on Culture for Nursing 1 students. It was a very beneficial source.

Did not find this to be all that much different informationwise than the other healthcare culture sensitivity books out there

This book is the definitive work on this subject, one that is sorely ignored by the medical community in general. I'm a physician and specialize in children's diseases and treatment. I have given a copy of Ms Galanti's book to every colleage I know. A must have for any physician or other medical professional, in particular those who practice in urban centers.

I obtained this book written by Galanti for an Anthropology class I am taking and believe anyone that is involved with treating and caring for others should read it. It is one of those books that makes you aware of many things that are out there that are completely different from the way in which we probably see things, it's definitely and eye opener... a must read...