Help with a school project

[sem179]

Hi!

I'm writing a paper about cultural competency and nursing practice. I was wondering if anyone had any experiences throughout their career dealing with a patient from a different culture or ethnic group. Were there language barriers? Did you experience unusual customs of that culture that you were not prepared to handle? How did you handle the situation? Do you think better training is needed for nurses to prepare them for dealing with cultural differences?

Any comments or stories would be appreciated!

Thanks!

[Cleigh26, BSN, RN]

I just graduated in May '05 and just passed my R.N. boards. I wanted to tell you that our class was taught a lot about cultural differences and that it really helped us in the clinical setting with patients. Examples range from post-mortem care (after the passing of a patient) to medication rituals. We also learned the basics like eye contact and touch. Some cultures recieve different messages from these things then what we are normally used too. Good luck on your project!

[suzanne4, RN]

Every single nurse in the US deals with cultural diversity on a daily basis at work, as well as ethnicity. This is done on a day to day basis as the US is a melting pot of people from all over the world.

I highly sugges that you narrow your topic or it can be a few hundred pages long to touch on everything that is out there.