Crossing Cultural Boundaries In Health Care

“Health is influenced by culture and beliefs” (NRS-429V, 2011, p. 1). In order for the nurse to properly care for the patient, she must know and understand the patient’s culture. “Cultural care is a comprehensive model that includes the assessment of a client’s cultural needs, beliefs, and health care practices” (NRS-429V, 2011, p. 1). It is not enough to just know where the patient lives or where he came from. The nurse must embrace the concept of cultural competence and cultural awareness. This requires not only the awareness of the cultural beliefs and values of their patients, but also

Cultural diversity in the health care setting is increasing each year. Knowing how to care for patients of different religious and spiritual faiths is essential to providing high-quality, patient-centered care. The author of this paper will research three lesser-known religions; Taoism, Sikhism and Shamanism. Through this paper, she will provide a brief background on each of the three religions and present information regarding spiritual perspectives on healing, critical components of healing and health care considerations associated with each religion.

Health in all cultures is an important aspect of life. A person’s cultural background, religion and/or beliefs, greatly influences a person’s health and their response to medical care (Spector, 2004). These diverse cultures guide decisions made in daily life; what food eaten, living arrangements made, medications taken and medical advice listened to. A nurse must be knowledgeable and respectful of these diverse cultures and understand their importance when providing care. This understanding helps to build a strong nurse/patient relationship, increasing patient compliance, which ensures positive outcomes are met. Patients who are satisfied

With the large increase multicultural population in the United States, nurses encounter patients with differences in healthcare beliefs, values and customs. To provide adequate nursing care, nurses must be aware of these differences. They must respect and acknowledge the patient’s culture. To do this, nurses need education on cultural competence to ensure patient satisfaction and better patient outcomes.

The first step to properly caring for a patient is acceptance. A nurse must accept the fact that not everyone is the same. Communities consist of many diverse ethnicities and spiritual practices. A nurse has to learn how to throw out all the judge mental thoughts of an individual and try to view the situation through the eyes of the patient. To be culturally competent in the professional practice of nursing, a health care worker must show respect. Health care workers cannot force a patient to go through with a procedure. The individual must respect the wishes of the patient to deny medical care whether it be because of spiritual reasons or just fear of the unknown. Most importantly, a health care worker must be culturally competent in order to avoid misdiagnosis of a patient. Judging a

Who is the person the nurse is caring for? Where is that person from? Does this person speak English, or understand what the caregiver is saying? What is this person’s cultural background? What are the health beliefs of this person, what are their illness beliefs and practices? These questions are answered differently depending upon the person and their heritage. As healthcare providers it is important to have a broad knowledge base in regards to different cultures and people’s practices to deliver effective health care. In 2006, the population of

Through her research, Leininger established an outline to further explain the importance of culturally competent care and the challenges presented throughout societies and healthcare institutions. The most obvious need for cultural sensitivity is the ongoing immigration throughout the world. As more people from different parts of the world enter into one area, different cultures will be present. The people that migrate to a new region or country will have the expectation that respect will be shown for their beliefs, particularly in the healthcare setting. This includes the use of technological advances in medicine. Some cultures may not understand or trust the delivery of care that is based on new technology (Andrews & Boyle, 2016).

"owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality, and is unable to, or owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country." (UNHCR, 2004)

Being culturally competent and delivering culturally sensitive care is imperative for anyone in the medical profession. It is important because of the many diversities faced every day in the health care field. However, simply understanding the fact that there are so many health disparities is not enough. In order to reach out and effectively care for patients of different backgrounds and cultures one must understand the importance of cultural competency. In order to be culturally competent, a nurse must have knowledge of the different cultures, and

Encountering a fast growing aging nation, the U.S. government strives to create the cultural competence of medical care providers for this to lower health inequalities. The overall rising number of the older adult population exemplifies a cultural icon within itself. The proportion of older adults from ethnic and racial minority groups is projected to increase exponentially by 2050, with the largest growth rates being among Hispanics, followed by Asian-Pacific Islanders, American Indians, and African Americans. During the year of 2006, the U.S. Census Bureau stated that 19 percent of the U.S. population that is aged 65 years and older would be considered as a minority. In 2050, 39 percent of the countries older adults will be denoted by minority groups. For these predictions, organizations should incorporate community outreach. This will help in studying the population and learning who are the most efficient resource individuals within the ethnic groups. Also, they can predict the need and demand for alliances or affiliations so that when families get there, the health care organizations can be more organized and be prepared to give pertinent services and resources. Organizations can reach out to religious groups to help engage workers, trainers, or religious leaders who has a better understanding of the individual’s cultural back and they can also help in educating employees in the distinctions of working with them to display respect (Lehman, D., Fenza, P., &

Every year a large group of Haitians come into the United States and may become a part of the health care system. In the challenging field of nursing, nurses need to be aware of cultural differences and should provide each client with cultural competent care. Each and every year, Haitians enter this country legally and illegally but regardless of how they enter the US, it is inevitable that they will need to be cared for at some time in their life. The astute nurse must understand the need for cultural sensitivity and what to assess for prior to providing care for a Haitian client. The assessment should include communication barriers, orientation of time, health beliefs, health risks, and even more

Some of the other structural factors affecting migrant health care is that many health care clinicians in the field of migrant health work under demanding and difficult circumstances. Most clinics serving migrant farmworkers are nonprofits with unreliable and changing sources of funding and many lack expensive medicines and medical instruments. In addition, nurses and physicians in these clinics often have to perform many extra duties. Often times, clinicians feel despondent and frustrated as they have to watch the systematic deterioration of their migrant patients’ bodies. (Holmes, pg.

As the head of a small aid agency in Congo, our duty is to cater the refugee’s health dilemmas and concerns. We must attend to their needs by providing them the right health services suited for their condition. Like what is happening in the camp, the refugees are in need of cornea transplant because of the poor water condition which resulted to them being blind. Therefore, we must do any possible means of giving them enough corneas and adequate protection they need by figuring out how to eliminate the peculiar parasite in the water. Aside from that, incoming refugees would be possible knowing that civil war is happening at the moment so we also need to accommodate them

The main aim of this context is to discuss international standards of the practice for culturally competent delivery of services to patients by the nurses. The recipient of the nursing services is assumed to be a person, family, or a community. The standards are based on the social justice system, that is, that every person is entitled to equal health care services. Be it educational or social in the context of health care opportunities.

Nowadays, nurses not only need to know how to care of their patients, but they also must be able to care of patients from other cultures with many beliefs and values. Cultural views of individual influence the patient’s perception and decision of health and health care (Creasia & Parker, 2007). In order to care for people across different languages and cultures, nurses need to develop cultural sensitivity, knowledge, and skills.