Aboriginal Health

Whilst on placement at Royal Perth Hospital I had the pleasure of treating a middle aged aboriginal male.

I think that we as health care students in australia are given a lot of information on treating aboriginal people and how we should respect their culture and a million and one other considerations we need to observe. This is great and all of this information is very useful but I have found that it has made me quite nervous every time I have an aboriginal patient to treat.

This particular patient was great. I went in to treat him and after being in his room for about 5 mins soon realised that it's great to know all of these things about aboriginal culture and how to treat aboriginals but they are just the same as any culture. There are some people who are more traditional and others who are less strict about thier cultures. This particular man was hilarious fun and asked me to call him Robbie Williams!! He had a great sense of humour and his family were always around, which can on occasion be a deterrant to treatment but in this case it was great they were really proactive with his treatment and also a lot of fun. I really enjoyed going in to treat him everyday.

My advise is to learn and know all of these things about aboriginal culture but to also just treat the individual. Start with a more respectful approach but try to guage who your patient is and treat them as is appripriate for them. This would go for any culture!!