The Cultural Diversity Of Nurses In Healthcare Facilities

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.

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

In today’s healthcare system, nursing is a challenging field as a result of rapid technological advances and changes in healthcare policies. As a dedicated nursing professional, with a great passion for learning, I strive to stay on top of these changes. I am determined to increase my knowledge to be an instrumental part of providing quality healthcare. The demands of nursing are high; however the rewards are even higher. Nursing requires both a supreme understanding of the science of health, and a caring bedside manner befitting only those who seek a position of such a personal involvement in the well-being of a patient. Academically, I will put forth all of

The need for continuing education in nursing has been accentuated in response to rapidly changing health care environment. Expanding knowledge by pursuing higher education allows nurses to enlarge one’s practice. Furthermore, higher education in nursing has been shown that a nurse’s level of education can become a critical factor to the patient-centered quality of care. This essay describes increased demand for higher education in nursing and emphasizes the necessity of continuing education to provide optimum patient care in various setting.

“Diversity encompasses acceptance and respect. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. It is about understanding each other and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each individual” (University of Oregon). The concept is a simple one, but the reality of putting diversity into practice is not. As a nurse, I have the power to advocate for and assist people with their health care needs, but I must be willing to reflect on myself and my biases to do that effectively and successfully.

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 United States has had an immigration issue for many years that serves some people, practically enslaves others and causes many others to get angry. Of course, this issue concerns illegal immigration and legal Hispanic farm workers. The population who is best served by the influx of workers are the farms in the central valley of California and other areas that use these individuals to harvest crops. The workers in the United States illegally are in constant fear of being discovered, and they are often exploited because of their immigration status. Legal citizens are, in large part, angry with the situation because of the cost incurred by so many people entering the country and not contributing to the tax burden imposed on citizens of the country. The issue for this paper though is what type of healthcare women in this situation are getting, and whether it is sufficient. This paper contends that this population is underserved for many reasons, and this group was chosen for that reason. One solution is to develop a cultural competence by understanding the population's culture, how they see healthcare workers, and to determine what their healthcare needs are.

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

In retrospective, it appears that the group went slightly on a different direction this time as compared to Module D's discussion session. This time around, the group discussed each challenges (culture, religion, gender, etc.) separately -bringing out ideas why each find it a challenge, agree, disagree or clarify with each other, and find a common ground on each topic. As each issue was discussed, an underlying theme was found that covered the different challenges mentioned. It was found that cultural bias or diversity seems to be the underlying theme. Hence, the group agreed that cultural bias is the most challenging issue that the nursing profession faces. Slightly different approach but consensus was still achieved (many roads leads to

Changes in the nursing profession are a continuous cycle of upheaval and reevaluation. The demands on healthcare will continue to expand as the world advances with new technologies, an older population, sicker patients, and, a growing immigrant population. As nurses progress into the 21st Century, the development of new models of education will arise to meet the demands of chronic sicknesses along with the growing diversity in America. More pressures will be placed on nurses, as they adjust to the constant changes in technology and the demands of sicker patients. Immigrant are dramatically growing in America, therefore more education about cultural diversity is needed in nursing schools. In order for any profession to grow, more education is needed.

I have always been taught from a young age to accept everyone and never discriminate, regardless of race, gender, or sexuality. Coming from an Italian American family with grandparents who immigrated to the United States from Italy, I recognize that not everyone conforms to the American culture, and truly understand why it is so necessary to accept those who are different from us. It is very important to me to make those around me feel safe and comfortable being themselves by looking past our differences. As a nurse, my responsibility will be to treat each patient with the best care, making sure to ask about and accommodate their religious and cultural needs. Along with my family encouraging acceptance, I also grew up in a very diverse area

Nursing is one of the fastest growing professions today, with nurses forming the largest sector of health care providers. Nurses use their specialized knowledge, experience and skill set to improve and promote the well being of patients by easing pain, suffering and loss. Also, the job market for nurses continues to thrive. The National Bureau of statistics predicts that, by they year 2020, there will be an estimated shortage 800,000 nurses. Such predictions breath hope into current and future nursing students who hope to take on roles as nurses. What makes nursing special from other fields, however, is the diversity of the profession, with more opportunities to specialize in multiple areas such as labor, critical care, pediatrics, cardiac

Sometimes, nurses do not know or do not have a significant reason as to why they have chosen nursing as a career and why they practice it. All nurses should appreciate nursing theories and its use in daily practice. Nursing theories are essential to use in daily nursing practice to improve patient quality of care and outcomes including nurse to patient communication. They can be helpful to use as a reference when making certain nursing decisions, providing guidance when perform certain skills and tasks, and improving nursing knowledge development, and increasing self-confidence. According to Alligood (2014), nursing theory is a hypothesis or organized statements made by nursing theorists to describe personal nursing experiences.

In the first scenario, the nurse was going to listen to the patient's lung sounds and she moved her hair to the side and saw numerous red circular marks on her back. The nurse immediately freaked out and started saying things like "oh my god, what are these marks on your back?", "Are you being abused?", and "I'm a mandatory reporter" (DiversityNursing, 2011). She did not give the patient a chance to speak up and explain the situation. Instead, the nurse stormed out of the room before the patient could talk. This type of cultural incompetence did not enable ethically sound nursing care. The second time around in the video, the nurse started off by asking the patient how she would like to be referred to. When the nurse saw her back and the marks