Increase Cultural Awareness in Nursing
Over the years, nursing has proved to be beneficial in nature has it has increased the quality of health care services in most of the hospitals. It has been noted that there has been a direct relationship between the quality of health services provided and the qualifications of the nurses in any given hospital. Nursing as a major prepares its students to be in a position to deliver the best services when they are needed to. It has also been noted in any given population, there are diverse cultures that do exist. The best way to understand an individual is through the understanding of his or her own culture. Increase in globalization has increased the culture diversification even more. People of different cultures are travelling the world to come seek new environments. The nurses need to be in a position to understand these different cultures in order to provide services effectively. With these in mind, there is need for the nursing curriculum to add to its syllabus a new subject that will focus on studying of the different cultures in the society hence to improve service delivery in the long run.
According to the nursing student handbook, once nurses graduate from the university or college, they should be in a position to demonstrate the ability to practice in accordance to the American Nurse Association Code of Ethics (CSUEB). The code of ethics was developed to guide the morality of nurses when practicing and to keep the sanity of the profession. According to the American Nurse Association, the code of ethics requires nurses to practice with respect and compassion for uniqueness, worth and dignity for every individual. This means that nurses should take into consideration the needs of the patients when it comes to service delivery. This can only be done only if the nurses do understand the needs of the patient. Research have shown that the best way to understand an individual well, is through the understanding of his or her culture through their background information. Therefore, the course should be introduced into the syllabus so as to make it easier for the nurses to understand their patients, so as to provide better services.
The undergraduate nursing program should provide more skills on cultural awareness, cultural differences, and different religious beliefs to better prepare its students for real workforce challenges. The course can add cultural and religious awareness seminar class to enrich nursing student’s knowledge on cultural diversity. In the seminar class, the content should include but no limited to the following: defining culture, examining different cultural groups’ practices, values, beliefs, and diet, explaining different cultural gestures and prohibit habit, defining the religious aspect of nursing, identifying each religious group’s diet practices and beliefs, defining what health, death, and sickness mean in each cultural/religious group, and many more. The content seems overwhelming to add on with the busy nursing schedule. However, the class can be divided into subgroup of two to three people and each group is assigned with a cultural/religious group to work on. Therefore, each group can focus on their assigned project and learn about the specific culture or religion. At the end, each group present what they have learned and highlight the important considerations that nurses need to know in providing care to that specific group of the patients. Through this class, the nursing students not only learn about the different cultures or religions but also be able to realize the different between their own culture from others and be more aware of their own bias.
The content of this class serves as a fundamental knowledge for nursing students to enhance their ability to provide better health care services. The course will allow the nursing students to make reference and to identify patient’s cultural perspectives in term of providing more appropriate care. For example, patient who is Jehovah Witness come in with anemia and require blood transfusion to bring the blood hemoglobin level but patient refuses the treatment. Nurses once tought of the different cultures of the people in their society will be in a better position to understand why the patient is refusing this medication. This will kreduce the chances in which nurses do struggle with patients and instead focus on another point of action.
It can be seen that it is important for nurses to understand the different cultures that do exist in the society in which they leave in so as to attend to their patients better; this can be better achieved through the introduction of a program that will allow nurses to be educated on the different cultures in their society. Therefore, Cultural Awareness in nursing should be considered as an important course to the nursing students as it will increase their efficiency in service delivery.
Works Cited
American Nurse Association. Code of Ethics for Nurses with Interpretive Statement. 30 June
2001. Web. 4 March 2014.
East Bay. Web 4 March 2014.
Maier-Lorentz, MM. "Transcultural Nursing: Its Importance In Nursing Practice." Journal Of
Cultural Diversity 15.1 (2008): 37-43. CINAHL Plus with Full Text. Web. 4 Mar. 2014.
