What Is The Importance Of Culturally Congruent Nursing Care And Cultural Sensitivity

It is unfortunate that this has been their experience. It is because I am a health care provider, I want to be optimistic, and assure that health care facilities and Nursing, in general, are doing all that they can to change that. As a nursing major, I had taken many classes which taught me about the importance of culturally congruent nursing care and cultural sensitivity. As I had explained in the response to Elizabeth's post, providing certified, medical interpreters by all health care facilities to the people with a less than adequate understanding of the English language, is required by law. Many hospitals, I have to say, including the hospital, I am employed by, provides such services to the patients, including teaching materials in
print, in many languages. As I had mentioned earlier, the nursing curriculum devotes much time to teach nurses about the importance of respecting cultural differences in health care. A lot has been done, more still needs to be done. Many nurses complain that the language barrier is only a tip of the iceberg. They demand more training to understand the nonverbal cues such as eye contact, silence, touch, etc. in the nursing curriculum, as they feel that receiving an education and training in transcultural nursing could help to alleviate the problem. While our communities become more diverse than ever before, it is unlikely that nurses will learn the many languages their patients speak, however, understanding the meaning of certain nonverbal cues used by different cultures may be very beneficial for providing culturally competent nursing care.