It is a well-known fact that disparities in healthcare exist among minority groups. The nursing profession, in an effort to deliver more appropriate and individualized patient care, is continually gathering data that can influence the patient’s experience. One very important arena is that of culture. Culture can be a determining factor in the care delivered, and therefore should be included in the approach to maintaining and restoring health (Barker, 2009).…
Cultural safety plays an important role in nursing ethics. However, ethics is probably one of the most frequently applied yet commonly misunderstood components have missing practice. Everyday nurses make decisions about what is the right course of action but sometimes nurses make mistakes and pursue the wrong course and occasionally who will be called upon to explain the reasoning behind their decisions. Although much of this will be clinical there will be those times when the conditions are ambiguous where there are competing and conflicting claims. Cultural safety in its most practical sense provides a framework for making the best decision in any given situation with such dilemmas arise. It provides guidance for rules for right and wrong…
Many institutions and professionals have become more sensitive to cultural, ethnic and gender issues than ever before. Many hospitals have educational material in many different languages and have translation services and telephones to help those who uses sign languages and for the patients with limited English to communicate and give better care and treatment. In the hospitals, rehabilitation and other short term and long term care facilities manager and charge nurses also try to make an assignments on the floor nurses according to patients need, for an example, if a patient is from a particular culture or ethnic group, a nurse who will be assigned to that patient will be with similar culture and ethnic group unless patient refuses. This is done to promote better communication and better treatment outcome and less conflict between the care giver and the client. Another example for understanding the importance in cultural diversity is when the American Arab female or her family request for female nurse or doctor to take care of her instead of male nurse or male doctor, it is hospital’s responsibility to respect that request and that patient’s cultural belief and practice as much as possible.…
Flowers, D. (2004). Culturally Competent Nursing Care A Challenge for the 21st Century. Critical Care Nurse, 24(4), 87-87. Retrieved February 10, 2015, from http://ccn.aacnjournals.org/content/24/4.toc…
9) When you were growing up who lived with you? Mom, Dad, and two sisters…
Cultural diversity in the medical field is, at times, greatly hindered because of religious beliefs, language barriers, and the hierarchies of diverse cultures and these have the propensity to affect the continuity of care for the patients. “Every person has different aspects that constitute their identities, according to how they see themselves….This means that seeing an individual in terms of their identity can be unproductive.” (Weaver, 2009). Nursing personnel, in particular, have to take into consideration any and all cultural differences between the patient and the nursing staff. These differences vary in as many ways as there are different ethnic groups in any particular area.…
Your post is well detailed and very educating. Competency in nursing is the key to providing quality care to patients. That being said, nurses and other health care providers are expected to be educated quite often on cultural competency so as to better understand the patients in order to achieve a better patient satisfaction. Thanks for sharing.…
Cultural competencies is a term that has long saturated the healthcare world, especially nursing. The United States has become a melting pot of culture and ethnicity and to practice in the hospital setting it is essential to know the backgrounds of your patients and their families. Different cultures have different perceptions on health and illness. Providing culturally competent care includes knowledge about subcultures, attitudes, and skills that’s supports caring for people across international differences, including language barriers. Using a heritage assessment tool, you can reliably determine the needs of your patients based on cultural influences; It will help you assess the needs of the patient, how to go about your health promotion teaching, and protection and restoration of individual cultural beliefs. The purpose of this paper is to explore the Hispanic, European, Asian cultures, and the author’s own personal cultural influences. The objectives are to identify with different families and determine the needs of the individual based on the heritage assessment.…
The nursing profession continues to walk towards excellence in cultural competent delivery of current healthcare needs. In the pursuit of excellence and the love of learning, there are always improvements to be made. Continuing education requirements are the backbone of building nurses into life long learners. Identifying personal areas of growth are an effective mode of continuing to add to existing nursing skills. In this paper, I will identify areas of improvement that I would like to make in my cultural competency skills. I have self identified these areas through completing a tool called the Ccultural Ccompetence Sstudent Sself-rating Aassessment. By utilizing this self-assessment tool, I will target weaknesses in my cultural competence skill set and create a plan to increase my proficiency in those targeted areas. Good introduction.…
This 2011-2012 study was conducted to determine if cultural competence training would be a positive influence a pediatric health care provider’s understanding and treatment of culturally diverse patients. 69 participants were chosen from the Nemours Children’s Health System, from a variety of departments including both inpatient and outpatient physicians, nurses, physical therapists, and other health care workers. The participants were required to take a pre-training self assessment, a two-part cultural competence training program, and a post-training self assessment one year later. The training program consisted of an internet-based module followed by group discussion. According to the post-training self assessment surveys, participants…
New York City is rich with culture and tradition from around the world. Some of the major challenges I expect to face from working in this environment are the potential cultural divides that can exist between the patient and physician. Language barriers and societal disparities are among some examples that I expect to come across. The ability to be willing to view your patient as an individual, with their own customs and outlooks, forms a large role in building trust between the patient and provider. Though at times cultural differences can be detrimental in providing optimal care to the patient, the right mindset can significantly improve patient-physician cooperation. My multicultural heritage has given me the unique opportunity to interact empathetically with people from various cultural backgrounds.…
Healthcare is an area where cultural can play a major role in the overall health and wellness of an individual. Providers need to be sensitive to the patient’s traditional ways of medicine while combined with the traditional western method of medicine. Healthcare professionals also need to be aware of the plethora of languages and dialects that are now part of the American population as well as religious beliefs. Barker (2009) identifies these factors to prevent bias or stereotyping of the patient. Nurses are patient advocates and to ensure that the patient needs are being met, this group will need to utilize their skills to bridge that gap between cultural competence and cultural conflict. For nurses to be able to effectively do this there needs to be…
There is a growing community of immigrants and refugees in Colorado from countries in Africa, so there is growing need for basic awareness among health care professionals about the backgrounds of these patients and families.The continent of Africa speaks hundreds of languages and if dialects spoken by various ethnic groups are also included, the number is much higher. Not all of these languages and dialects have the same importance: some are spoken by only a few hundred persons while others are spoken by millions. In some African cultures certain meanings to words change. This can heavily affect communication between healthcare professionals and others that come from Africa. Not only do healthcare professionals need to be sensitive to language…
Dying is part of the normal process of living, but that isn’t to say that dealing with death is an easy feat. Thus, it is important for nurses to understand their patients’ cultural background in order to provide culturally competent and compassionate care at the end of life. Culturally competent medical care for the dying patient by nurses and healthcare providers alike is a challenging task, especially when religious values, practices, and beliefs influence the treatment decisions for patients as the end of life nears. The purpose of this paper is to discover cultural practices among the Jewish community at the end of life.…
In our society, nurses don 't have to travel to faraway places to encounter all sorts of cultural differences, such as ethnic customs, traditions and taboos. The United States provides plenty of opportunities for challenges stemming from cultural diversity. To be culturally competent the nurse needs to learn how to mix a little cultural understanding with the nursing care they offer. In some parts of the United States culturally varied patient populations have long been the norm . But now, even in the homogeneous state of Maine where we reside, we are seeing a dramatic increase in immigrants from all over the world. These cultural differences are affecting even the most remote settings.…