Is there cultural diversity in the nursing profession?

Nurses General Nursing

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" 18% of R.N. students are minorities." (pg 367, Sociology of Health, Illness, and Health Care-Rose Weitz *excellent book!)

Awhile ago I started a thread on the increasing cultural diversity of american citizens and how the nursing field is adapting to this. I neglected to a address a crucial aspect to creating a more receptive health care system for people of all ethnic backgrounds and that would be to have more diversity among nurses. Based on the quote above there seems to be little. Is this true though? To all you nursing students and working nurses- Are most of your co-workers and fellow students caucasian? If so why do you think that is? and are there steps being taken to encourage more diversity? I could come up with a few ideas on this, but I would like to hear the communities responce.

also check out the thread, "opening the nursing profession to spanish speakers."

Most nurses here are caucasian, but so are most of our citizens. I actually found there were a lot of "minorities" in our nursing class, and the classes now also have many students who are male, east indian, native, etc. I don't know how minorities stack up to caucasians as a percentage of the population though.

I think there is a lot being done to attract minorities to the school here, including special scholarships, but I know at least one minority group I work with a lot look down on the profession of nursing, especially as it concerns their sons. They think it's a woman's job and their daughters should simply become care aides because the education is shorter, the pay is good, and they won't work full time once they marry and have kids. I have had several people tell me this and I try to convince them otherwise.

thank you for your comments. Good point!

Specializes in LTC, ER, ICU,.

"are most of your co-workers and fellow students caucasian? "

welcome to the board! it depends on the area you live, the area you work and the school one is attending which will give you a different %. as a "whole" the % is less.

I should say the group I am talking about is mostly made up of first and second generation Canadians, so a lot of their traditions are incompatible with sending a girl to school for four years.

I live in California and it depends where you work. Here you see more Filipino nurses and some areas more caucasian and still very small percentage of African Amerians and Hispanics nurses yet we have a very large Hispanic population. I notice when I went to a diverse college for nursing there were only 5 blacks 3 of them were from Africa one Jamaica and American, myself. Honestly I couldn't tell you why not so many minorities don't enter nursing may not appealing enough who knows.

I don't tend to look at the world in terms of racial division. I tend to forget that this is an issue for some people. It is an issue, however in the workforce. There is racial tension at work, whether I chose to pay attention or not. I am actually a visible minority on my unit. Though this fact does not keep me from my responsibilities, the "cliquish" atmosphere does errupt whenever there is conflict or tensions on the unit.

Interestingly, it did not occur to me that there were any kind of racial differences on the unit until I was called a "strange white girl" for saying that I liked fish sauce on my pancit. I found this funny, by the way.

Adrienurse

Pancit. Pancit. Love it. Haven't had any in ages! Oh, and lumpia!

White married Jewish Female RN here,

I AM the minority (in nursing and in my hospital).

Doesn't matter to me. My patients get my best efforts and advocacy regardless of their or my race or ethnicity. Anyone who cares to be a nurse and treats people w/ compassion is welcome to join me.

My hospital has Philipino nurses,African American nurses, Hispanic nurses, Polish nurses, Indian nurses, white nurses, Jamaican nurses, etc. We also have men of all different ethnicities. I believe the nursing profession is very culturally diverse. At least in NJ it is. However, I don't think it matters. What matters is that we have intelligent, caring, competent nurses, regardless of the color of their skin.

I live in a small town,most of the nurses are caucasian, a few are Native Americans, a few Fillopino, no Blacks , but there are few Blacks in this town. Several are hispanic. Where I went to nursing school ( New Mexico), out of 30 in my class, only 5 of us were Cauc., The class was mainly Native American. Was a great way to learn more about their culture, as 5 diferent tribes were reprsented.Living and raising my kids in N.M. was good as they never got that White supremecy thing going as we were always the minority. In fact when I started traveling, that was thing I found disturbing......way too many white skins around......:eek:

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