Diversity

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I have a question for any any of the nurses who may be reading this post. First of all let me begin by telling everyone that I live in a major city with a very racially diverse population. Most of the hospitals in my area have a nursing population that reflects the diversity of the city but there is one hospital that does not. I used to work at this hospital and I felt very uncomfortable with this. I just wanted to ask any of the nurses out there reading this post how important is it for you to work at a hospital with a great variety of racial diversity or does it not matter to you? I just do not understand why every hospital in my area boasts such diversity but one particular hospital is lacking significantly. A friend of mine is considering taking a job at this hospital but she asked me the very same question I'm asking you guys. Is it something that we should worry about? Thanks in advance

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/xenophobia

Xenophobia is not always about people from different places- sometimes it's because they're strangers. The feared person/people can easily be of the same ethnic group as the xenophobic .. :)

It's a diagnosis that isn't always racial/ethnic in its basis- and more of an anxiety issue than a bigoted one.

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Specializes in Infectious Disease, Neuro, Research.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/xenophobia

Xenophobia is not always about people from different places- sometimes it's because they're strangers. The feared person/people can easily be of the same ethnic group as the xenophobic .. :)

It's a diagnosis that isn't always racial/ethnic in its basis- and more of an anxiety issue than a bigoted one.

Understood, however, in sociological terms, there are generally learning models and belief structures that create and foster the anxiety. It would be challenging, to say the least, to find the presence of xenophobia and the absence of racial/cultural/tribal/gender differences. (E.g., Zulus and Masai, Chinese and Chiang-min, Celts and Francs, all are of the same "ethnic" groups, but have/had devout tribal differences.)

In common usage, the difference would be in the expression.

Kinda like the tree falling in the forrest, with no one around- "if a xenophobe hates, and does not express it, are they still a racist...?";):D

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Understood, however, in sociological terms, there are generally learning models and belief structures that create and foster the anxiety. It would be challenging, to say the least, to find the presence of xenophobia and the absence of racial/cultural/tribal/gender differences. (E.g., Zulus and Masai, Chinese and Chiang-min, Celts and Francs, all are of the same "ethnic" groups, but have/had devout tribal differences.)

In common usage, the difference would be in the expression.

Kinda like the tree falling in the forrest, with no one around- "if a xenophobe hates, and does not express it, are they still a racist...?";):D

I can see that if in reference to a group....just not an individual- as an absolute certainty that they're bigots- some may be, but some may not. :)

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Some of you guys are getting a little too butt hurt over this. I kinda understand where the OP is coming from because I live in a diverse suburban community. I've seen facilities that hire predominately Black workers and predominately White workers. I avoid both like the plague because based on my community there is no reason for health care facilities in the same vicinity to consist of one kind of people. A lot of you guys are making assumptions on "who's better qualified" and "refusing to hire non-qualified persons for the sake of diversity". There's a lot of blanket statements and assumptions and we forget that we don't even know where the heck OP lives or what hospital she is talking about. Just because you've never seen it before/it doesn't affect you, that doesn't necessarily mean that it doesn't exist or isn't true because you don't know all of the details.

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It might be a little easier to be of assistance to the OP if she still worked or was trying to work at this hospital. Or if she knew for certain that its hiring practices were deliberately discriminatory. Or if she had specific examples of discriminatory incidents that the newspaper or TV stations had reported.

As it is, she just asked if she should be worried about this hospital. I guess I read that as, "Should I make some assumptions about this place?"

I'm not a big fan of assumptions. Educated guesses, maybe. But that would be with a lot more information and some actual facts to work with.

OP, if your friend wants to work there, she should. If she doesn't, she shouldn't. If she does, and there are problems based on her protected traits, she should file a complaint. If your friend or others file complaints or begin a protest, support them if you think they're right.

Other than that, with only supposition and assumption, you don't have a dog in this fight.

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Thanks gummi bear! This whole thread started to take a very odd turn a while back and your post was very refreshing. Some of these comments sound quite defensive for some reason. The OP hasn't even posted in a while and seemingly last said something to the effect of 'it is what it is.' If you're still reading the thread OP, I guess I'll throw in my opinion since you asked for it. If you're accurate in your statements, of course it's ODD that this ONE hospital out of many in the SAME area has a seemingly non-existant diversity in staff while EVERY single other one has a staff rich in diversity which reflects the makeup of it's surrounding community. It's like the Sesame Street game "one of these things is NOT like the other." To be blunt and a little rash (yeah,yeah) the reason for this seems pretty obvious to me if you just take into account the information you gave. They like to hire a CERTAIN type of individual for WHATEVER reason. It's a matter of if your friend cares that "others" are being seemingly left out of the becoming hired stage of this place. It looks like poll wise, quite a few on the thread would choose to ignore the blatent lack of diversity in this place while some would run in the other direction. It seems like a good idea to express whatever concerns you are having to your friend if they don't already know them and they can take the decision from there. Sorry for all the flames!! I'm new to allnurses however, but not new to life.

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Thanks gummi bear! This whole thread started to take a very odd turn a while back and your post was very refreshing. Some of these comments sound quite defensive for some reason. The OP hasn't even posted in a while and seemingly last said something to the effect of 'it is what it is.' If you're still reading the thread OP, I guess I'll throw in my opinion since you asked for it. If you're accurate in your statements, of course it's ODD that this ONE hospital out of many in the SAME area has a seemingly non-existant diversity in staff while EVERY single other one has a staff rich in diversity which reflects the makeup of it's surrounding community. It's like the Sesame Street game "one of these things is NOT like the other." To be blunt and a little rash (yeah,yeah) the reason for this seems pretty obvious to me if you just take into account the information you gave. They like to hire a CERTAIN type of individual for WHATEVER reason. It's a matter of if your friend cares that "others" are being seemingly left out of the becoming hired stage of this place. It looks like poll wise, quite a few on the thread would choose to ignore the blatent lack of diversity in this place while some would run in the other direction. It seems like a good idea to express whatever concerns you are having to your friend if they don't already know them and they can take the decision from there. Sorry for all the flames!! I'm new to allnurses however, but not new to life.

Really? How in the world can anything be "obvious," "certain," and "blatant" based on a couple of paragraphs of second and third hand information? :confused:

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It's just my personal opinion based on the firsthand information provided by the OP. They didn't seem to be speaking in hypotheticals. They said only one type of demographic was being hired ( a CERTAIN type). If ALL the other hospitals are doing something one way and they aren't and most of the community talks about this oddity, then what they are doing seems to be BLATANT. Luckily they only asked for our opinions and not a true case study. I stand by my writing based on the OP's info and am fully aware that some will disagree for whatever reason just like others disagree to other posts. Am I willing to bet my life on any of this, not a chance...and I wasn't trying to offend with bolded words.

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Specializes in Emergency, Telemetry, Transplant.
It's just my personal opinion based on the firsthand information provided by the OP. They didn't seem to be speaking in hypotheticals. They said only one type of demographic was being hired ( a CERTAIN type). If ALL the other hospitals are doing something one way and they aren't and most of the community talks about this oddity, then what they are doing seems to be BLATANT. Luckily they only asked for our opinions and not a true case study. I stand by my writing based on the OP's info and am fully aware that some will disagree for whatever reason just like others disagree to other posts. Am I willing to bet my life on any of this, not a chance...and I wasn't trying to offend with bolded words.

I would only bet my life on it if I were near the best hospital....be it the one with the most diverse or least diverse staff. I also go back to my earlier post. Why would other hospitals need to 'boast' about the diversity of their staff if they had the best care in the area?

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Specializes in PICU.

Diversity is not just race. Just because "one hospital" out of many may have the same color of faces does not mean that they are npt still diverse, what about gender, socioeconomic, etc. There are so many things that separate us in life and make us all unique. We have been so engrained into wanting a "diverse" work place that many people focus on race as a key indicator that a facility is diverse.

To the OP if your friend likes the unit she is working in, is treated with respect, who cares if it is racially diverse as the other hosptials, it comes down to is she happy with the care she provides to her patients, and are the patients happy with the care received.A place can be very diverse and promote diversity but if they can't provide safe good care then the diversit is pointless. So no your friend should not be worried,

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I support the idea that a hospital should hire a diverse staff and embrace the diversity of the individual employees. However, I do not think it is right for the hosital to 'pass over' qualified applicants for less qualified applicants only in the "name" of diversity. :twocents:

Now part of it may be my background, but I don't see any problem with a staff that is less diverse than the neighborhood surrounding the hospital as long as racism and prejudices do not play a role in the hiring practices.

No one has posted in this thread in a while but I just read it. I feel that if the OP had specified that the hospital in question is hiring almost exclusively Latinos or Asians, and that white people are suspiciously underrepresented there this conversation would have a very different tone, and much fewer "who cares," or "I don't see the problem" types of comments. It's frustrating when discrimination only becomes a legitimate issue to some white people when they feel they are getting the short end.

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how could one not notice a facility w/o no diversity at all?

i live in a city, so all the hospitals are diverse...very diverse.

if i entered a facility where only one ethnicity was present, i'd be curious too.

leslie

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