Doctor-patient communication is of utmost importance but being culturally sensitive is not limited to providing an interpreter for patients who require one. Many aspects of communication are non-verbal, and culture plays a huge role in medical interactions. Fatima, a Muslim woman, does not make eye contact with her male doctor as a sign of modesty. Her doctor is bothered by this lack of eye contact and is visibly frustrated with Fatima.

 

1.)  Explain how Fatima would perceive the doctor's actions? 

2.)  Do you feel the doctor's perception of Fatima would result from top-down or bottom-up processing? Be sure to explain your response. 

3.)  What are some ways the doctor may have formed his perceptions in relationship to this scenario? Include at least two examples.

4.)  How might our perceptions differ from those of someone with a different cultural background or perspective? Share at least one example of how individuals from different cultural backgrounds may perceive the same event differently based upon their cultural perspective.

5.)  How would acknowledging perceptual and cultural differences be useful in your future career? Be sure to address your profession/field specifically.

1.)  Explain how Fatima would perceive the doctor's actions? 

- Assuming that Fatima has limited awareness of the social norms of his doctor, she might perceive the "visibly frustrated" behavior of the physician to be something that is her fault. This would result to self-doubt and questioning of what might have caused such a reaction. As a result, Fatima would be even more distal and reserved, fearing that she might add up to the frustration not knowing that the doctor's frustration is precipitated by the very same actions that she would potentially resort to. This is due to her culture which respects the authority of a male in such a status quo; as such, a Muslim woman would not dare to confront a male person like him.

2.)  Do you feel the doctor's perception of Fatima would result from top-down or bottom-up processing? Be sure to explain your response. 

- I feel that the doctor's perception of Fatima would result to a top-down processing which refers to a cognition-driven perception wherein the brain applies previously stored information to "fill in the blanks" in the process of interpreting a scenario. In Fatima's case, because of the visibly frustrated behavior of the doctor, Fatima may feel discomfort and wonder if she had done something that upsets the male physician before her. Having limited knowledge about the precipitating and predisposing factors of the doctor's frustration, she might end up distancing herself more which is, in her culture, a perfectly appropriate response when someone is upset. A Muslim woman would not dare confront a frustrated male of such a status quo and this will result to further misunderstanding between her and the doctor.

3.)  What are some ways the doctor may have formed his perceptions in relationship to this scenario? Include at least two examples.

- To answer this, it is important to first determine the perceptions of the doctor. This is mentioned descriptively in the last sentence of the given case where it states that the doctor was "bothered" by Fatima's lack of eye contact, and is "visibly frustrated." Though the doctor's perception of the scenario was not explicitly mentioned, an inference can be made particularly in this last sentence. Apparently, the doctor did not particularly approve of Fatima's lack of eye contact when talking to her, as implied by words such as "bothered" and "visibly frustrated." Having this understanding of the doctor's perception, it would seem that some ways the doctor may have formed this disapproval of Fatima's behavior include his lack of exposure to Muslim patients, and his limited awareness of the cultural features that operate in Fatima's behavior. With these two factors, it is certainly probable that the doctor would form such a disapproving perception towards Fatima. 

- This section was added due to an alternative interpretation of Question 3, namely, that that is about the ways that the doctor could have acted differently to better accommodate Fatima. In this sense, the two alternative ways wherein he could have interacted with the patient is through asking about the affective state of the patient (i.e. "Are you feeling comfortable?") as an attempt to assess the emotional state of Fatima. By doing so, the doctor may have some ideas of what would make the patient more comfortable. Another thing that he could have done is to invite a female colleague in the room or Fatima's parents so that she would not feel strongly intimidated. The presence of other people would potentially diminish the doctor's attention which reinforces Fatima's discomfort and it would also alert the doctor of the underlying cultural influences that explain Fatima's lack of eye contact.

4.)  How might our perceptions differ from those of someone with a different cultural background or perspective? Share at least one example of how individuals from different cultural backgrounds may perceive the same event differently based upon their cultural perspective.

- This question has two units; the first one inquires about how perceptions differ from those with different cultural background/perspective, and the second one demands examples of how individuals from different cultural backgrounds perceive the same event (I assume this refers to Fatima's experience) based upon their cultural perspective. I will begin with the first unit about how perceptions differ from those with different cultural background/perspective. For this inquiry, I think it would be helpful to draw insights from sociological theory such as constructivism which states that reality is socially constructed. Given this framework, the cultural background of a person such as Fatima, predisposes her to view certain activities in certain ways (i.e. eye contact with the doctor). 

- On the other hand (responding to the second unit), other people may not share the same understanding and attitude as Fatima in regards to the meaning of eye contact, to her, withholding it from a male with such a status as the doctor is a sign of respect. Comparing Fatima's response to say for example, an American woman, eye contact is perceived as a sign of respect regardless of the status quo of the person you are interacting to. The same is true for other European countries which value straightforwardness as a measure of courtesy. 

5.)  How would acknowledging perceptual and cultural differences be useful in your future career? Be sure to address your profession/field specifically.

- As a practitioner of psychology in the future, acknowledging perceptual and cultural differences is not only useful but also mandatory to some extent. First, doing so would prevent my pre-judgments and biases from interfering with the various processes in activities relevant to psychology such as psychological assessment, psychotherapy, and counseling. Biases can be detrimental especially at the beginning phase of therapeutic relationship with a client. It may hinder the smooth development of my rapport with client if I was not able to manage personal biases such as in the case of Fatima above.

- Second, acknowledging perceptual and cultural differences will serve as a good protection on my part, lest I risk myself violating ethical propositions and legal boundaries. There are various legislations for instance that are quite broad and pose risks of discriminations, hate speech, et al. One particular example of this is the issue about gender pronouns which if you are a practicing professional in some countries and are unaware of the law, you may end up with a lawsuit among other negative outcomes.

- Third, there is also the factor of personal satisfaction that is associated with being agreeable towards your client. Given that a vast majority of psychology professionals have high level of agreeableness, acknowledging the perceptual and cultural differences would contribute to the development of good rapport with clients which constitute the features of this trait (agreeableness) in the professional's personality.

- There might be other reasons for acknowledging the perceptual and cultural differences in practicing psychology but the above propositions should be strong enough reasons for the affirmative position in this regard.

Step-by-step explanation

The response above was developed by analyzing the meaning of each question unit given by the student. After a series of reading and re-reading, I was able to construct a coherent synthesis of what the questions are all about. It appears that the main issue relates to the themes of perceptions and multiculturalism. I answer each question unit using several paragraphs, incorporating some of my previous knowledge with the culture-sensitive approach in psychology and infusing it with the given scenario about Fatima and her physician. Once I finished constructing my responses, I re-read the entire thing to correct potential errors before finalizing it.