Newly arrived immigrants seeking health care in the United States encounter several problems including language, cultural, societal, and logistic barriers.
When serving an ethnically diverse population, it is imperative that physicians have an understanding of a patients' cultural background and attitudes towards health, nutrition and personal care.
A psychology professor stresses the importance of cultural competence and cultural sensitivity physicians in meeting the end-of-life care needs of an increasingly diverse patient population.
Readers are referred to an article by J.T. Berger in a 1998 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine and provided with a list of ethical questions to consider about culture and ethnicity in clinical care.