As the health system changes and increasingly focuses on primary care and prevention, it is critical that health care providers develop ongoing and trusting relationships with their patients. Cultural sensitivity and awareness is particularly relevant to maternity care. The birth of a child initiates another generation into a family and affords a new opportunity for cultural traditions to be solidified, thus strengthening the bond between parents and child and serving to unify family members. Communication is at the heart of who we are as human beings. It is our way of exchanging information; it also signifies our symbolic capability. Medicine has a culture of its own, with traditional codes of conduct that have been passed on from generation to generation. From that point of view, Women's Health and Education Center (WHEC)'s community and family health approaches are particularly important for achieving social and cultural relevance in health work.Read More

Science and law must coexist. It would be for the good of all if this relationship were a mutually helpful one; at the very least neither one should exploit the other.Read More

In USA there is no medical care crisis. It is a medical cost crisis. The health care delivery system needs a major reform. A plan for quality medical care for everyone that preserves our choices is needed.Please send your thoughts and opinion for publication.Read More

In December 2000, 149 heads of state and or government and 189 Member States jointly endorsed the Millennium Declaration, thereby committing themselves to achieving, by 2015, ambitious goals including reducing poverty, hunger and disease. These goals are known collectively as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and they will serve as a basis for recording progress in development for the next 15 years.Read More

Discusses the rising cost of health care due to social and medico-legal pressures which are responsible for the over-utilization of diagnostic techniques and various treatments.Read More

Every one of us will be confronted by our own death and that of the people we care about, yet it is difficult to name any other fact of life that is so fiercely resisted. In our culture denial of death is pervasive. In the past, death at home surrounded by relatives was perhaps easier to accept as a natural event. Now that more people die in hospitals, set apart from the living, death seems all the more mysterious, frightening and remote from our existence.Read More

The population of the earth is aging, and as medical techniques, pharmaceuticals, and devices push the boundaries of human physiological capabilities, more humans will go on to live longer. However, this prolonged existence may involve incapacities, particularly at the end-of-life, and especially in the intensive care unit. This arena involves not only patients and families, but also care-givers. It involves topics from economics to existentialism and from surgery to spiritualism. It requires education, communication, acceptance of diversity, and an ultimate acquiescence to the inevitable. Advance directives can be a difficult topic because they deal with end-of-life and other serious medical situations. However, advance directives are valuable to patients and health care providers alike because they minimize conflict between family and health care providers by clarifying and respecting patients’ wishes. In a perfect world, every patient would have clear, concise documents that designate a proxy who communicates his or her end-of-life wishes. In the real world, however, this doesn't always happen. This series on End-of-Life Care explores answers to some key questions to help physicians avoid legal liability in situations when the path is not entirely clear.Read More