Exploring Cultural Attitudes to Cancer

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• Exploring Cultural Attitudes to Cancer
• August 25th 2006

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Emina

• 12 year old school girl, migrated with family
  from Bosnia in 1998
• She is working on a school project on health and
  lifestyle
• She asks her parents about cancer prevention and
  risk factors
• Her father smokes inside the house

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Emina

• Her mother says to her father, You should give
  up smoking, it is bad for your health and it
  causes cancer
• Her father says, Stop nagging. Plenty of people
  smoke. Ive smoked all my life. Im healthy.
  Anyway, Im ready to die when my time is up

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Amna

• A Sudanese woman who speaks Arabic
• She is 29 years old and married with 5 children
• She has difficulty with written information in
  Arabic as well as English

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Amna

• Her GP tells her that she needs to have a Pap
  smear
• She is confused, frightened and embarrassed
• She says that she is used to her husband making
  decisions and she believes he wont be happy
  about her being examined

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Tang

• Chinese man, 51 years old, smoker, married with
  adult son and daughter
• History of rectal bleeding, weight loss ? booked
  in to have a colonoscopy

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Tang

• His son rings his doctor before the colonoscopy
  and requests that if cancer is found that this is
  not disclosed to his father
• Tang is diagnosed with colorectal cancer and
  liver metastases

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Tang

• Later
• Tangs condition deteriorates rapidly
• His daughter and son want him nursed at home

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Giovanna

• Italian woman. 70 years old. Widow. Lives in the
  Riverland
• 1 adult daughter married with 2 young children
  lives nearby. 1 adult son lives interstate. She
  has a sister in Italy
• Has a mammogram at Mobile BreastScreen Unit
• Diagnosed with breast cancer

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Giovanna

• She tells her married daughter but does not want
  to tell her son interstate
• She rings her sister who offers to come to visit
  her
• She is told by her GP that she needs to travel to
  Adelaide for treatment

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Giovanna

• She says that she will not go unless her daughter
  accompanies her.
• She comes to Adelaide with her daughter and
  undergoes an mastectomy and then has radiotherapy

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Vinh

• 73 year old Vietnamese man with advanced lung
  cancer
• Married with 3 adult sons
• Admitted to hospice for palliative care

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Vinh

• Vinh is a Buddhist
• He is in a lot of pain but refuses opioid
  medication
• His wife and sons are very distressed

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Tegan

• 16 year old girl of Anglo Saxon background
• Her best friends are Lebanese and Greek
• Unhappy with pale skin, seeking a tan to be like
  her friends
• Jennifer Lopez is her heroine

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Tegan

• Wants to spend the whole day on the beach
• Her mother says that it is not such a good idea
• Tegan believes that if she uses a spray on tan
  she will be protected
•