Cultural considerations for Canadians in the diagnosis of brain death.

Purpose: This articles explores cultural perceptions and values related to brain death and organ donation from both a Western and non-Western perspective.

Source: Anthropological literature review of the historical concept of brain death in Canada using Eastern culture as a comparison.

Principal Findings: Although the concept of brain death and concomitant organ donation have become widely practiced in Western nations such as Canada, from a cross-cultural point of view these concepts and practices can be deeply troubling and may hold profoundly different meaning to people new to Canada.

Cultural pluralism in health care: a South-African-Canadian comparison.

Views on the acceptance of cultural pluralism in health care are shaped by myriad of social and cultural factors. Through the comparison of Canada and South Africa, this article examines how ideology, history, demographics, and the cultural understanding of illness have shaped the views of cultural pluralism in South Africa in a way that is distinct from the Canadian perspective. Canadian health-care workers must consider such differences as we must be careful not to apply the concept of cultural pluralism in a way that people of other cultures may not understand or value.