NR 394 Discussion Reflection on Transcultural Nursing
NR 394 Discussion Reflection on Transcultural Nursing
NR 394 Discussion Reflection on Transcultural Nursing
This has been one of the most beneficial classes in my journey to complete my BSN. I have been a nurse for 23 years and working on my BSN on and off for 6 years. This is my last discussion post as I am finally done. In the next few years, I plan on moving out of the Continental U.S. I will likely land in one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, but I have not ruled out other locations. My husband and I will be living on a catamaran, so I have the option to see and experience nursing in a variety of settings and locations. Having an understanding of the importance of culture and how that impacts health and others’ perception of health is essential in providing care that I am comfortable giving and others are comfortable receiving.
Our reading this week speaks to human trafficking its global impact. This is something I have been aware of from a patient care aspect, but I never considered I should be concerned for my own safety if seeking employment abroad. Definitely something to be conscious of. Also, having an understanding that when working abroad I will be perceived as a visitor is also important to understand. Being comfortable to ask questions about culture in order to understand what is important for delivering respectful and culturally competent care is essential. Having a respectful curiosity about cultural beliefs will hopefully help build trust even if seen as a visitor. I am excited for the journey ahead of me.
CONGRATULATIONS! It feels really good to be done, doesn’t it? I love that you are moving out of the US, exploring what is out there and living on a catamaran. I recently learned about CDC WONDER and found it to be helpful and a good source of information for all nurses as well as our patients. It is a beneficial website and resource for us and can be used to help us understand patients in us a specific region of a city or state. Good luck in your future nursing adventures! Maybe you will be the next “Where is Lennie?”
We made it to Week 8! Congratulations! This week’s lesson focuses on assessment and care for patients at end of life.
Discussion: Remember that the final discussion will close on Saturday, as stated in the course Syllabus. Be sure complete your posts by Saturday at 11:59 p.m. MT.
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Week 8 Course Outcomes
CO 2: Differentiate between normal and abnormal health assessment findings. (PO 4)
CO 3: Describe physical, psychosocial, cultural, and spiritual influences on an individual’s health status. (PO 4)
CO 6: Demonstrate caring and professional behavior and during patient interactions. (POs 6, 7)
I have really enjoyed our time together and I hope you have found this course to be interesting, and to have enhanced your nursing practice in some way. I wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
I really learnt a lot this past 8 weeks. This is one of the classes I will not take for granted for it has shaped me when it comes to cultural competence. I am a new grad nurse and this class has really opened my eyes during my research projects. Where I work, we have people of different cultural background and sometimes it is difficult to understand them. Knowing the importance of culture will help me communicate with my patients better and make sure that they are also respected according to their culture.
I plan to learn more about the different cultures and also implement what I have learned so far at work. I will avoid making assumptions, I will question any assumptions I have about cultures that are not my own and make an effort to either prove or disprove the assumption and turn it into knowledge. I will also practice active listening when individuals of different racial or cultural backgrounds are involved. It’s essential for we as nurses to build trust with our patients, regardless of ethnic or racial backgrounds. However, treating culturally diverse patients require a heightened level of trust to be established, which can become even more difficult when there’s a language barrier. Determining my own strengths and weaknesses when it comes to working with people and taking care of patients who come from different cultures is probably one of the most important ways that will help improve my cultural competence.
As a new graduate nurse, I agree that this class definitely has given me a new perspective on cultural competency. I think, like you said, a very important key is to avoid making assumptions when it comes to culture. It is vital that we ask patient their preferences rather than assume, be wrong and offend them. Thank you for sharing!
I absolutely love your post this week. The transparency that you are actively using is just amazing. I agree with you on so many levels, because this course has been quite beneficial for me as well. I was unsure of which electives to take but I am so happy that I decided to choose transculrural nursing as one of my choices. I also plan to learn more about different cultures and implement what I have learned in my clinical practice. To have Professor Deibel has been such a pleasure! Excellent post on this week Adaku! It has been a joy taking this journey alongside you and our fellow classmates!
Many thanks for sharing your thoughts about what you learned as far as transcultural nursing is concern, the past eight weeks have not only been productive but also molding as individuals are better equipped with skills of engaging in transcultural nursing care as well as being culturally competent as a nurse. Cultural competency is one aspect of nursing that every nurse needs to not only understand but acquire (Giger & Haddad, 2020). Our country is continually receiving immigrants from various cultural backgrounds; the implication is that as a nurse, there are very high chances of offering care to people from different cultural backgrounds. As such, there is no better time for a nurse to be culturally competent than now. One of the things I learned is that no cultural belief or practice is inferior to another, therefore as a nurse, we need to understand that these cultural beliefs and practices impact on individual’s attitudes and behavior towards care efforts, hence by respecting and appreciating them, a nurse stands a better chance of offering more effective care.
I agree with you on the strategies you have selected concerning how you will use transcultural nursing skills going forward. I like the suggestion to stop making an assumption. Assumptions are not the best way to know the truth about a matter; therefore, the effort of questioning the existing assumptions about other cultures is a good point to start from. Seeking to unearth myths and truths about other people’s culture not only allows an individual to have a different perspective (usually better) but to also assist in cultivating trust. I believe developing a positive attitude towards a different culture and deliberate efforts to strengthen areas of weakness regarding transcultural nursing aspects can be vital in improving an individual’s cultural competence.
References
Giger, J. N., & Haddad, L. (2020). Transcultural nursing-e-book: Assessment and intervention. Elsevier Health Sciences.
As I am completing this course, I am reflecting and thinking about how I would implement the lessons learned in this course. I have been a nurse for 14 years. I have specialized in psychiatric nursing. I have worked as a psych nurse for eleven years. This course has reinforced my belief that I am doing what I am supposed to be doing.
Working with people that are mental ill or have addictions, has taught me to humble myself and listen to people. It has taught me a lot about myself and own traumas. This course helped me to become more empathetic towards different cultures. Not that I wasn’t empathic, just helped me to become happy about what I do and why I do it.
I know that I need to go forward. I have a passion to help teach those who do not know or understand. I truly believe that knowledge is power. I want to empower people. I am thinking about going on and completing my Masters. When I started, I didn’t even want to complete my BSN. This program has taught me to be a better nurse and I want to help other nurses become better nurses (even if it is not in psych).
One of my favorite aspects of living in California is the diversity of cultures around me. Picking this class really stood out to me because I always want to do better for my patients and this course truly has taught me more about culture and how I can provide better patient care. Going forward, I will apply what I have learned in this course to my nursing practice. One of the biggest obstacles for me in the community I work in now is that I do not speak Spanish or Vietnamese but being culturally competent goes beyond just speaking their primary language but a lot goes into body language and trying to understand their culture. Another tool I have learned in this course is to be more aware of myself and that I need to practice active listening more with my patients.
Welcome to the last week of this semester and for me the last semester of my BSN program. Thank you for being a part of this journey m
Introduction
Training and educating a nurse for present and future assignments can be a daunting task since the trainees need to be equipped with the right kinds and combination of skills that should enable them to excel at offering the best care to the patients. An arguably more challenging task is translating or transferring the lesson learned in a learning environment into practice where the patients must be given the kind of needed care following set standards and procedures (Svavarsdottir et al., 2015). For some time now, we have been learning about transcultural nursing and cultural competency, two nursing contents that are essential in molding more complete nurses. The content already learned about transcultural nursing has added invaluable knowledge to my future nursing practice tool kit. Therefore I will expound on how I will implement the already learned lessons into my future nursing practice and illuminate how I will incorporate cultural competence and diversity awareness in both the current and future nursing assignments.
Implementation of Lessons Learned About Transcultural Nursing
Transcultural nursing has, in the last years, been a key aspect of healthcare. It is worth noting that its importance is even growing more with the ever-multiplying multicultural population in the USA. Therefore, the onus is with the nurses to ensure that they are in a position to overcome the challenge of multi-ethnic and multicultural issues and offer the best holistic and individualized care to their patients, irrespective of their backgrounds (Giger & Haddad, 2020). The first way of implementing the lessons is by recognizing and appreciating cultural differences in customs, beliefs, and healthcare values among the patients within my area of operation. Such a move will enable me to develop a strong nurse-patient relationship with my patients, creating an enabling environment for empathy and care, hence better patient outcomes and job satisfaction on my side.
I will also leverage the knowledge acquired when developing holistic care plans for my patients. Holistic care should address a patient’s spiritual, emotional, social, psychological, and physical needs. I will use the lessons learned to identify and meet my patient’s holistic care needs and offer as much individualized care as possible. The individualized care plans will have to account for my patients’ cultural differences, therefore formulating a care plan for my patients will have to be a process that takes care of their cultural values and beliefs hence better care.
Incorporating Cultural Competence and Diversity Awareness
After learning about cultural competence and diversity awareness, the next will be to integrate and embed the same in both my current assignments and in my ideal future roles. Studies have shown that some cases of patient harm and lack of better care arise from language barriers and incompetence. Some of such harms include insufficient medication adherence, adverse medicine interactions, negative medication responses, missed screenings, and misdiagnosis. In my practice, one of the aspects of cultural competence I will want to be alive to is communication which is enhanced by understanding what the patient says, what he/she wants and doesn’t want. Having learned what is needed for cultural competence, I will strive to learn the languages of the minority ethnic groups within the catchment areas of my operation. Learning the languages will help me better communicate with the patients better and learn more about their cultural beliefs and values, and attitudes towards medication and patient care. I will then be able to make individualized care plans.
Conclusion
The lesson on transcultural nursing and cultural competency is a springboard for more holistic patient care without ethnic and racial limits. By applying the lessons learned, I believe I will be a better nurse who serves and treats patients with empathy, care, and respect with the aim of providing the best patient care.
References
Giger, J. N., & Haddad, L. (2020). Transcultural nursing-e-book: Assessment and intervention. Elsevier Health Sciences. Doi: 10.1111/jnu.12108Links to an external site.
Svavarsdottir, E. K., Sigurdardottir, A. O., Konradsdottir, E., Stefansdottir, A., Sveinbjarnardottir, E. K., Ketilsdottir, A., … & Guðmundsdottir, H. (2015). The process of translating family nursing knowledge into clinical practice. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 47(1), 5-15.
This course has certainly taught me many things that I can implement into my daily nursing practices. As an emergency room nurse, I have a variety of patients with all different cultures and backgrounds. While we have an i pad with live translators that we can utilize, this does not help us as healthcare providers implement cultural competence. This class has been informative and made me realize how important it is to assess each patient individually and learn their beliefs, values and needs. By assessing each patient’s cultural beliefs, we are better able to create an individualized plan of care and build trusting relationships with our patients. I plan to take the time with each patient to ask and learn about their culture, healthcare beliefs and individualized needs. I feel that after taking this course I am more culturally aware. The biggest thing i’ve taken out of this course is that providing culturally competent care allows us to create the best possible outcomes for our patients.
Being a Correctional Nurse, I deal with different cultures on a daily basis. So being culturally competent is a big thing for me. This class has help to reeducate me on things that I felt I already knew when it comes to different cultures. Our population is mostly Hispanic and African American, but every so often we get some one from a different culture that we are not accustomed to deal with on a daily basis. Being a Correctional Nurse is a challenge in itself, and add on top of that people being arrested for different reasons they have to deal with and add on top of that, to learn that they are a new diabetic or monitoring their blood pressure daily because it was high and there is no history of hypertension. Learning what’s important to individuals and what they value is something I will continue to work on as I continue my career as a nurse.
This class was so timely for me, having moved from a small city in my village to a big city that is remarkably diverse. The course has helped me gain information on how to deal with my patient. I will always ensure I do a cultural assessment to my patient to be in a good position to understand their needs well. I will provide care to my patient without judging them according to their background. I will advocate for my patients to ensure they get the required care and not feel discriminated against by culture.
I plan to learn more about a different cultures in the country to understand them better. When I get a chance, I will share the information that I have acquired with my colleagues to ensure our patients get the best care and improve their outcomes. Am planning to move my family too from the village, using the acquired information am going to prepare them on how to deal with the cultural diversity they are going to face.
Am glad I went through this class and got to understand what is expected of me as a nurse when taking care of a patient with a diverse background.