Heritage and Health Essay

With cultural differences evident among the human population in the world today, it could be noticed that the different approaches also differ from one culture to another. Having the knowledge that people are usually shaped in life through the traditions that they were particularly brought up with, some definitely use these traditional ways of health maintenance to suffice their need for better health status. In this paper, understanding such differences among human individuals at present and how well they are able to withstand the challenges of modern health issues that face the human society at present through the implications of traditional ways of health care procedures shall be discussed and clarified. Personally, the author of this paper has seen the different ways by which his culture imposes the different procedures of healthcare approaches among the ancestors and older generations that he has lived with. Considerably, seeing them and the process by which they deal with health emergencies and the emerging issues that pertain to the said need of being healthy, taught the author himself to face certain health situations in the same manner. Most of the procedures used by the author’s ancestors are based on the process of using alternative routes to healthcare maintenance. Instead of actually being able to find the most important approach to health issues through medical ways, the family line of the author tends to find cure from regular herbal solutions. Traditional as it is, his ancestors believe that it is only through this process that they would be able to find the most demanded cure without having to worry about the many possible side effects of the process that they are going to adapt to. This is the reason why most of the author’s family members try their best to do away with synthetic medicine and vitamins offered in the market today. Having the chance to meet to other families from other cultures, the author himself found out that the entire process of maintaining health from his side of the family may be a little bit different from that of the process to which other cultures view the said need to protect one’s health. For one, the implicative manner by which the other family from the west naturally brings about the welcomed possibility of accepting new age medicine without any doubt. Likely, that family was particularly raised in a society of continuous change and development. Their intense belief that change is for the better makes them well acquainted with the different developments in medicine that brings about the possibility of dealing with health issues in a much convenient and faster way which they think is most effective not only for their health needs but also for the lifestyle that they are living. Meanwhile, another family attests to the use of rituals for the sake of saving a family from any health phenomenon that may arise in the human community that they are living in. They also depend on rituals and prayed-for oils that are believed to have a great chance of healing someone with an illness or even with a terminal health case through the collaborative use of touch and prayer. As much as they believe in alternative medicine, they also believe that their gods would be able to help them get through life especially during trying times including the need to deal with serious health cases. Seriously, up to these moments, the two families and the family of the author himself have a great connection with traditions especially when it comes to health issues and the need to deal with the situations concerned with the said matter. Terribly, there are some occasions when too much tradition makes a family member’s life be subjected into serious dangers. This is the reason why the author himself decided to take nursing as a career, a path that he knows could both protect his family’s health and allow culturally deepened families to see the differences of the procedures of modern technology and modern medicine to bring ease to the health needs of the human society. Knowing how these people feel about their connection to their culture certainly makes it easier for the author of this paper to see through the situation and be able to decipher the health cases he is supposed to handle later on and still be able to find the most effective procedure there is to manage giving them the health care assistance they need without completely bypassing their cultural traditions just so to be able to save the lives of people in an ethical yet strategic way. It is through this process that the author believes that he would be able to successfully applied what he has learned within the four walls of the classrooms and laboratories along with the things that he learned and would be continuously learning from actual medical practice to meet the needs of the people who are culturally loyal to their traditions when it comes to health maintenance needs. True, some of these cultural or traditional procedures help well in the idea of keeping a good grip on keeping one’s health protected. In fact, it could not be denied that there are those medical experts who retrying the avenue of alternative medicine as suggested through traditional procedures of healing, however, for certain terminal health cases, there must be a careful balance on the given attention towards health safety and traditional loyalty to the ways that one or a family has been particularly accustomed to. Truthfully, this fact leads to the idea that nurses need to be flexible enough to know and recognize the need for health safety and cultural respect in dealing with healthcare issues.