Cultural Competence In Nursing

The essence of Cultural Competence

Nursing has evolved into a respected profession and must continue to proceed towards excellence in the performance of cultural competence. Culture Competence is an essential component of nursing, especially since nurses have an instrumental impact on improving and promoting health status of culturally diverse groups while considering the values and beliefs of others. In the current health care needs, each patient should be viewed as individual and it is crucial not to generalize groups of people. Dr. Madeleine Leiniger was the first nursing theorist to originate the term culture competence. According to Butts and Rich (2018), “Leiniger’s transcultural model has implications for how nurse’s asses, plan, implement

Evidence

Culture competence is a concept that can be demonstrated in a plethora of ways included nursing and non-nursing with many dimension. Madeleine Leininger (1978), states “to be culturally competent means to asses and understand culture, care, and health factors and use this knowledge in creative ways with people of diverse and similar lifeways (p 117). However, an individual does not suddenly make the decision to display cultural competence. In any profession, it is said that individuals have to progress through several stages to reach the final goal of cultural competence. In order for an individual to understand the beliefs of others, one must evaluate their own beliefs first which begins with cultural awareness. According to Hess and Billingsley (2007), some antecedent’s concepts include cultural diversity, cultural awareness, cultural knowledge, and culture desire. In addition, Hess and Billingsley (2007) states, “effectively serving and supporting families requires the professionals, organizations, and communities develop the skills to work with those diverse background and varied social cultures. In human service fields,

On the contrary, an episode of Call the Midwife displays the absence of cultural awareness and cultural competence between patient and nurse. Valeria is presented with a case that involves a pregnant Somali woman who values a different and unfamiliar culture. The Somali women were circumcised back in Africa at a younger age and was now due to give birth to her first child in East London during the late 1950’s- 1960’s. The Somali women was adamant that she will not be cut with a knife by the male doctor. Valerie didn’t understand the reasoning behind the women’s culture, beliefs, and wants. In the episode Valeria refers to what is “normal” however, she as a nurse is closed minded and lacking empathy to the patient’s wishes. As Valerie is displaying her lack of cultural awareness and cultural expectance, she is preventing patient empowerment and diminishing the nurse to patient bond. It is important to include that health care has made several tremendous advances since the 60s, one improvement including a more complex and patient –centered