How does the study of sociology relate to Nursing?

Nurses General Nursing

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I'm taking a sociology class right now and our teacher decided to replace the final exam with a group project. This group project is more of a contest. The group with the best project will get a perfect 100. The next 96, the next, 92, the next 88, the next 84, 80, 76, 72, and 68. So no matter what, a group of people in the class will get a 68. The teacher separated the whole class into groups by their majors. Our teacher combined the majors Nursing, Pre-med, and Pre-Dentistry for our group. Most of the groups have 3 to 7 people in their group. Our group has thirty! :eek:You think that having such a large group will be an advantage. It was hard to talk to everyone at once and try to grasp ideas from everyone. We have to make up an 8 by 11 sheet paper, that states how the study of sociology is mandatory for our fields of study. The sheet has to be full of information, pictures, symbols, and has to tell a cohesive and comprehensive story. We decided to use some of the main points that we focused in class this semester which is: Understanding Culture, Deviance, Race and Ethnicity, Gender, Families, Education and Religion. So I wanted to know if any nurses :nurse: will mind sharing some of their experiences with these topics.

All experiences and opinions are appreciated :)

:twocents: don't neglect the often-ignored effect of culture, education, and personality on the behavior of the caregivers. we see examples on an every day about how the patient needs to be told thus and such, or behave in such a way, or how the patient just p***es off the nurse because of how they behave. i believe that if the nurse had a better self-awareness of his/her own cultural/sociological influences and biases, hospital and other care would be better for everyone, patient and staff alike.

"the unexamined life is not worth living."--attributed to socrates by plato.

it sounds also as if those experiences where you made someone else uncomfortable could be enlightening to you, when you realize how many times we in the health professions have the opportunity or obligation to make people uncomfortable. think about how that makes your patient feel, and how, when they make you uncomfortable, you can deal with it. multifactorial problems are the most fun.

Specializes in Infectious Disease, Neuro, Research.
Lol thats exactly what I feel like, a guinea pig. I don't know what's up with my professor. I had three friends that took her, three different semesters, and they said she never did this lol. We also did other things like disrupting someone's reality? lol We had to do something that would make someone feel uncomfortable or weird them out. Like randomly taking a picture of someone, screaming loudly in the hall way, getting really close to someone's face when you started to talk to them, lol idk just crazy things.

I'm going to confess a personal bias- sociology operates on the belief that societies are able to make positive choices to improve the lives of adherents to the society. History really doesn't bear that out, unenlightened though my statement may seem. Evidence does indicate that most people do not wish to make decisions, they want others to take the lead, so fundamentally, sociological studies are psychology studies identifying leadership/command-taking individuals within a society. As the psychology of the leadership goes, so go the social norms of the group. Kinda scarey, but historically very valid... :D

In any case, under the assumption/validated concept that individuals do wish to adhere to some social norms (be it "counter" culture, "mainstream", or sub-culture), yes, you are able to make some valid generalizations about what to expect from your patients, and model some specialized communication and theraputic styles that they will be receptive to receiving.

Edit: The "advanced" concept here is that effective manipulators espouse the greatness of (or worthlessness of) the current society- always in an extreme fashion. This allows them to control the society by enhancing the "belonging" feelings of members. This holds true whether the society is large or small, from Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge, to Josef Stalin and the Communist party, to Charles Manson and David Koresh. Anytime someone is telling you how great the group is, start asking why...

I would get as many people in the class as possible to sign a detailed complaint and file a grievance with the administration before the projects are ever submitted or graded. This will demonstrate that you are not simply whining and trying to get out of a poor grade. Argue instead that the entire grading methodology is subjective, capricious, invalid as a metric for academic performance, and if possible, argue that it violates your college's academic policies. Keep appealing and keep climbing the chain of command until you reach an appropriate resolution. It is unacceptable for this instructor to put the students' grades at risk in a manner that is academically invalid. Think of the effect on pre-nursing and especially pre-med students who often need a 4.0 to get accepted into their schools!

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