Cultural Diversity In Nursing Schools

The nursing profession has a long history of assessing and placing patient needs first when giving care. The tenets of nursing practice include meeting those needs using individualized care by collaborating with the patient, family, and health care team members. (American Nurses Association, 2010). The concept of transcultural nursing aligns with these tenets because it calls on nurses to provide patient-centered care by taking into account the patient’s background, beliefs, culture and values. In this paper, I will identify the factors that made it necessary to develop the transcultural nursing theory, describe the meaning of diversity and its relationship to the field of nursing, and explain three ways that I provide culturally sensitive care to my patients.

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

Cultural competence is defined as possessing the skills and knowledge necessary to appreciate, respect, and work with individuals from different cultures. It is a concept that requires self-awareness, awareness and understanding of cultural differences, and the ability to adapt to clinical skills and practices as needed

The face of nursing has evolved and changed since it’s inception. Today’s nurse is faced with cultural, ethical and technological issues that didn’t exist even twenty years ago. As such, nurses have had to continuously evolve to continue to provide the quality, selfless care that patients have always relied on them for, and expected, since the very beginning of nursing. From pediatrics to gerontology, nurses are serving a culturally, religiously and financially diverse population with challenging needs. In the face of this, nursing itself is becoming ever more diverse in it’s culture and skill set, which is helping the profession stay in the race, and continue to advance the practice of nursing.

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.

Teaching and learning methodologies, principals, styles or approaches are perhaps the most challenging for nurses. Not only are nurses diverse in culture, sex, age, socioeconomic and religion, we are also part of a discipline that is diverse in practice. It is necessary to acknowledge our own beliefs, biases as it relates to other culture groups so that we don’t unintentionally create barriers to learning.

I consider myself to be a fairly traditional American white woman, with non-denominational Christian beliefs. My ethnicity is sort of a mixture of Irish, German, Native American and a few others, but my main cultural background is traditional American. I do not put a lot of emphasis on my ethnicity, because in my opinion and the opinion of many others as well, Caucasian American can be race and ethnicity. I celebrate traditional American holidays such as Christmas, Independence Day and Thanksgiving. I do eat traditional American foods, but I also love ethnic foods of all kinds. According to McKinney, James, Murray, Nelson and Ashwill (2013), “Belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God and the Messiah comprises the central core of Christianity” and “Study of biblical scripture; practicing faith, good works, and sacramental rites (e.g., baptism, communion, and others); and prayer are common among most Christian faiths” (p.44). I am non-denominational; however, I do believe this statement sums up the main core of my beliefs. I pray, I have been baptized, I believe in good deeds, and attending church. The only difference is that I do not believe that you must attend church or partake in communion to have a relationship with God; I believe that relationship is rather personal. Now in terms of American culture in the healthcare setting, Euromed Info Online indicates that Western industrialized societies such as the United States, which

Culture is a multifaceted characters of a diverse sets of people that have a common ground on values, languages, emotions and identity. It is a symbolic communication perpetuated in a much larger society that influence by means of conditioning and imitation from one generation to the next. Knowledge of cultural diversity is crucial at all levels of nursing practice. It require nurses to be challenge on a multilevel amplitude of social character and commitment. It is empirical that the nurse consider specific cultural factors impacting on each individual patients and be able to recognize its differences. The impact of cultural diversity on each patient start with the nurse as a co-provider and influence on the perceptions, interpretations and behaviors of a particular specific cultural group. Nurses need to understand the validity of how culture minded patients understand life process, health, illness, death, and dying. Through collaboration and scientific evidence of multicultural society can bring about a culturally-relevant and responsive services.

Haynes (2016) article, The Road to Cultural Competency Are We There yet? Stated that the key to decreasing health disparities in the workforce could be done by increasing diversity. Health disparities as indicated by Turk (2014), Issue: Nursing Workforce, can result in a more complicated societal problem. It was further stated, health disparities have received much attention and is currently identified as a priority issue in our nation. According to Haynes (2016), strategies which were recommended by the Sullivan Commission were done to increase the workforces of nursing should begin with education. Cultural competency as stated here should be a vital component of the nursing curriculum. Turk (2014) reported health disparities result in a more multifaceted societal burden. According to Turk (2014), decreasing health disparities has received significant attention. Individuals, including policymakers, academicians, and researchers are concerned about the diversification of the healthcare workforce of which strategies are being implemented by decreasing health disparities and increasing the availability of culturally competent among health care providers.

The most challenging, diversity-related situation that I have faced, and will likely face in my nursing career is successful recruitment and retention of minority nurses, and foreign graduate nurses in employment facilities, especially the hospitals. In addition, I have experienced disparities in health care and the outcomes as far as majority and racial or ethnic minority are concern and underserved individuals are well recorded. The health care quality and access for minority populations and those with low -income consistently do not keep pace with other groups. While

According to the December 2012 United States Census Bureau Population Projection, the nation will continue its trend of consistent diversification. By 2024, the non-Hispanic white population will show a decrease in numbers. Minorities including Hispanics, African Americans and Asians will double, and other groups will increase by at least half. Eventually, non-Hispanic whites will not be seen as a majority, but as an equally represented group among its ethnic counterparts (U.S. Bureau, 2014). This projection can not be transposed to the country’s nursing population. Non-Hispanic white nurses often vastly outnumber other groups (Bessent, 2009, p6). The nursing workforce needs to actively and continually diversify its professionals to provide competent care for the nation’s ever-changing population.

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

Increasing the number of culturally diverse nursing faculty can be a way to offer diverse role models to the nursing students of cultural minority. In addition, having nursing faculty of another race or ethnicity can help promote and interpret cultural knowledge into the current mainstream Anglo-culture-based curriculum taught in nursing schools today A3. It is suggested that this dominantly white cultured curriculum puts higher demands on students of an ethnic race, and incorporating culturally diverse learning styles can benefit all of the nursing students A3. As an example, incorporating into the nursing curriculum as well as into healthcare practice the emic and etic viewpoints of patients of the minority can be used as a way to see through a more culturally diverse lens

Before the age of eighteen, I had lived in three countries. My father’s career as a doctor and scientist of Military, Disaster & Extreme Medicine took my family throughout Kazakhstan, Russia, and the Ukraine. Although it was a challenge for me to continually adapt to new places and learn three languages, I am grateful for the cultural exposure that traveling provided me. In every new environment I was raised to treat others with equal respect and kindness regardless of any differences or similarities we may have had. This exposure has taught me that successful acclimation lies in the ability to interact well with people from diverse backgrounds. Here, in a country of immigrants, I have met people from countries all around the world. The Nursing field provides me the opportunity to help all people regardless of age, sex or ethnicity. I seek a Nursing degree here in the United States in order to increase my knowledge and to be able to practice in the field of professional nursing. My goal of becoming a Registered Nurse has long been encouraged by my personal interest in the profession and by my experience, previous education and achievements. These factors continue to motivate and inspire my desire to seek this degree and become a healthcare professional.

The first topic that interest me is the theory of cultural care diversity. Today, more than ever, a nurse must learn how to effectively communicate and provide care to patients from many different backgrounds. It is important to realize that every person is an individual in their way of thinking and their expectations of care provided. According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2013), minorities are