Ethnomedicine is a fascinating area of CAM and involves studying indigenous or traditional medical systems to include sickness origins, medical practitioners and what they do, and exactly what treatments are used (Freeman, 2009, p. 575). This is great news, as the cultural environments of patients are important factors in healing, disease interpretation, treatment considerations, and wellness choices! In addition, how the healer is seen within the culture can impact what the client expects from his or her healthcare professional. As an example, the traditional medical practitioner has a larger social role and has more involvement in the community than a biomedical practitioner (Neuman & Lauro, 1982, p. 1817). This would be important for a biomedical practitioner to know, as the client may be used to a certain level of involvement in his or her care which the biomedical practitioner would not normally provide. Potential communication issues around this topic could be avoided if the practitioner took the time to fully assess the client’s needs and expectations.
An ethnomedical outcome has the potential of not only bringing healing to the persons who belong to the culture, but to others who have the same condition but are members of other cultures. An article by Balick and Lee (2005, p. 391-392) discussed the findings from ethnobotanical studies regarding several different plant types with anti-inflammatory properties and the possibilities such findings bring. A pooling of knowledge, such as what could come from studying ethnomedicine along with other medicinal approaches, has the potential to bring to light a plethora of methods to alleviate suffering. The Institute for Ethnomedicine and the Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine have more details about ethnomedicine. As well, here is an ethnobotany blog another ethnobotany blog, and a medicinal herbs article for your perusal. See what benefits you can find!
Cultural competence is a component of ethnomedicine that needs to be in place so that the client’s experience will include all possibilities for treatment. This cultural competence article and this cultural competence blog contain information and examples of demonstrating cultural competence in health care settings. Another example was provided in a study by Thompson-Robinson et al. (2006, p. 102), where the authors stated that a framework for culturally competent services in public health settings met federal guidelines because it followed a systems approach to meeting client needs by evaluating health issues via a cultural competency viewpoint, and recognized that each cultural group had differing health resources and needs that should be considered when determining services in the public health system.
Never think that you are already culturally competent, meaning that we all have things to learn from each other. Working with people always offers the opportunity to encounter new and different ways of doing things – it just takes an open mind to listen instead of judge.
References
Balick, M., & Lee, R. (2005). Inflammation and ethnomedicine: Looking to our past. Explore,
1(5), 389-392. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2005.06.018
Freeman, L. (2009). The future of ethnomedicine. In Mosby’s complementary & alternative
medicine: A research-based approach (3rd ed., pp. 574-580). St. Louis, MO:
Mosby Elsevier.
Neumann, A. K., & Lauro, P. (1982). Ethnomedicine and biomedicine linking. Social Science &
Medicine, 16(21), 1817-1824. Retrieved from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
/pubmed/7178927
Thompson-Robinson, M., Reininger, B., Sellers, D. B., Saunders, R., Davis, K., & Ureda, J.,
(2006). Conceptual framework for the provision of culturally competent services in public health settings. Journal of Cultural Diversity, 13(2), 97-104. Retrieved from
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16856697
