Critical thinking

[stephynic21]

I have a question about a critical thinking assignment that i'm working on. It gives the following information:

Three women, a 21year old african american student, a 35 year old hispanic prostitute and a 65 year old white widow need teaching about the importance of screening for cervical cancer.

The question i have to answer is: How would you present the screening recommendations for each of these women that would demonstrate age and cultural appropriateness as well was the latest screening guidelines?

I'm just really not sure what i'm even being asked to describe here...can someone please just help me get the ball rolling?? Thank you =)

[Nursey103, ADN, RN]

I think they want you to describe your different teaching methods based on their different ages & cultures. How you will teach the student might be different than how you will teach the elderly patient. The hispanic female may need instructions in Spanish (if she Spanish is her primary language) or she may need a translator, etc.

Hope that helps - that's just off the top of my head!

[Daytonite, BSN, RN]

Critical thinking always starts with assessing the situation with which you have been presented and then determining what problems you have. Next, you develop strategies to solve the problems. What problems do you foresee with teaching this information to these 3 different women?

Assemble your information about cervical cancer guidelines and include statistics. Here's what I think of:

• A 21-year old African American student may or may not be sexually active and know a lot about the reproductive system. She may be concerned about cancer because of her young age. You will need to base what you teach her based on her age, experiences and perhaps her ethnicity.
  
• A 35-year old Hispanic prostitute has been sexually active and has a greater risk for developing cervical cancer. She may or may not be educated. You will need to determine this. She may or may not speak English. As someone who has been doing something illegal and abusing her body, does she sound like a person who will follow recommended screening? And, these are factors that you will need to base your teaching of her on.
  
• A 65-year old white widow may have never worked outside her home and been a housewife married to one man (only one sexual partner) all her life. She may have raised a family of children. She may or may not have gone to college or her children may or may not be college educated. At 65 years of age she may be retired and perhaps volunteering, maybe volunteering her time and very open to what you have to teach. And, these are factors that you will need to base you teaching of her on.
  

Something else you could do is check Erickson's stages or a developmental milestones for these age groups to make sure you are hitting important issues that will help make this information interesting to these people.