Medical Histories and Diagnosis
advance directive, with significantly lower rates among nonwhite races (Rao, Anderson, Lin, & Laux, 2014). For example, one study revealed significant differences among racial and ethnic groups in the rate of completion of advance directives, with about twice as many whites as African Americans completing advance directives (Morhaim & Pollack, 2013). This difference is likely attributable to several factors, including cultural differences in family-centered decision making, distrust of the health care system, and poor communication between health care professionals and patients. Collectivist groups, such as Hispanics, may be reluctant to formally appoint a specific family member to be in charge because of concerns about isolating this person or offending other relatives. Instead, a consensual decision-making approach seems to be more acceptable in this population. Among Asian Americans, aggressive treatment for elderly family members is likely to be frowned upon because family members should have love and respect for their parents and ancestors and because of their high respect for the elderly.
Did You Know?
The ability to take medical histories and diagnose current symptoms may be adversely affected by the patient’s comfort with modesty. Cultural values surrounding modesty are more than one’s comfort level with covering the intimate body parts. By definition, modesty is about respect. A provider who takes cultural modesty into consideration shows respect and caring in the highest degree. Modesty in many cultures often means showing good manners via verbal communication, dress, or behavior.
“ In societies that place a high value on modesty, it is important for both sexes, but particularly emphasized for women. A woman’s sexual purity and chastity honors her entire family. American women may view this as more discriminatory than protective. It is important not to assume that women in high-modesty cultures are forced to accept the restrictions placed on them by men. In fact, for many women in these cultures modesty is an attribute to be admired
and attained. Women often impose modesty on themselves and other women as a way of keeping boundaries of privacy and respect” (Carteret, 2011b).
You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.
Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.
Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.
The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.