|
The Bamboo Bridge is an
international community that seeks to achieve greater public access to a
community’s primary healthcare resources by increasing cultural diplomacy
between nurses and traditional healers and by creating research, information,
and educational opportunities that improve the cross-fertilisation and
complementarity of traditional and biomedical health beliefs and systems.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 80% of the world's population
continues to use their traditional methods of healing, including the use of
medicinal plants (Farnsworth, Akerele, Bingel, Soejarto, & Guo, 1985). The
World Health Organization defines "traditional" medicine or healing as the "ways
of protecting and restoring health that existed before the arrival of modern
medicine…approaches that have been handed down from generation to generation…and
have met the needs of communities for centuries." (WHO Fact Sheet N 134).
"Modern" medicine, also referred to as "western" or "biomedicine" is,
historically speaking, a much younger system of health care and yet it has come
to dominate the health care cultures of industrialized nations, such as Germany,
the United Kingdom, and the United States. The people of industrialized nations
continue, just as in developing nations, to utilize their nation's, town's, and
family's remedies for healing just as they explore the newer emerging diagnostic
technologies, drugs, and biomedical therapeutics.
Nurses around the
globe often receive their education in urban areas and/or facilities closely
aligned with medical centers focused on the biomedical paradigm of healthcare.
Therefore the professional culture of nurses is increasingly associated by the
public as being aligned with the values, health beliefs and practices of
medicine. Yet nurses have historically worked in rural communities and
facilities that support populations that use traditional methods of healing such
as herbal remedies, hydrotherapies, and spiritual ritual. Nurses, because of
their societal roles often serve as "cultural diplomats" (Libster, Herbal
Diplomats, 2004) for people as they navigate the "river" of historical and
conventional recommendations and evidence when making health decisions
that reflect a full spectrum of health promotion to life saving behaviors. They
need education, resources, and information about healing traditions for
themselves and their clients (individuals, families, and communities).
In 2004, Dickenson-Hazard, Chief Executive Officer of Sigma Theta Tau,
International Honor Society in Nursing, published the report of international
Arista conferences in which multidisciplinary participants identified global
needs for the future of health care and nurses' roles in achieving those goals.
At all five Arista conferences, the most frequently cited "unique challenges"
for nurses to be able to meet global health needs of the future included "differing
cultures, values, and beliefs requiring balance and integration of Western
medicine and health care principles with more traditional approaches" (Journal
of Nursing Scholarship, 2004).
The focus of the Bamboo Bridge Community is
to provide nurses educational support, resources and information for increasing
the complementarity of their work with healing traditions found within a variety
of socio-cultural contexts including those demonstrated throughout the history of nursing. Niels Bohr's concept of complementarity in quantum physics has been
applied as, "A general principle to permit mutual understanding and respect
among diverse cultures and allowing for the unity of human knowledge."(Grinnell
et al, Bioethical Pluralism and Complementarity, 2002). The Bamboo Bridge Project
takes the concept of complementarity in health care, as the inclusion of
historical, traditional, conventional, and biomedical paradigms and practices,
and puts it into action for social change. Nurses can help to lead this
integrative, pluralistic approach to the utilization of all health care
resources. In 1985, the WHO executive board concluded that the role of nurses
"would move from the hospital to everyday life in the community, that nurses
would become resources to people, rather than to physicians, and that nurses
would become leaders and managers of Primary Health Care teams, including
supervising nonprofessional community health workers" (Barnes et al., 1995, p.
8). Resolution WHA44.34 of the 44th World Health Assembly urged member states
(i.e., countries participating in WHO) to, "identify activities leading to
cooperation between those providing traditional medicine and modern health care,
respectively, especially in regards to the use of scientifically proven safe and
effective traditional remedies to reduce national drug costs" (Baba, Akerele,
& Kawaguchi, 1992, p. 65).
Nurses have centuries of experience as
leaders and facilitators of the sharing of healing knowledge, wisdom, resources,
and action. This experience however has not been cultivated as much as it might
have been and therefore has not been developed to its fullest potential for
strengthening global health. The Bamboo Bridge Community suggests greater
opportunities for cross-fertilisation of knowledge and practice between nurses
and traditional healers so as to achieve a greater understanding of
situations in which the traditional and biomedical health care beliefs and
practices have and can complement one another.
If you would like to learn more about Crossing the Bamboo Bridge: email:
Martha@BambooBridge.org
Founding Director:
Dr.
Martha Mathews Libster Illinois, USA
|
