urgent!! please help

Nurses General Nursing

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i'm writing a cultural diversity essay, but i am stuck as i have to write a critical incident where diversity was a major issue. i was told to make this as simple as possible.

i am a second year general nurse student.

Diversity is not about treating people with respect regardless of their culture. It's about appreciating different points of view and recognizing that they exist. For example, what if you had to explain the timing of a careful drug regimen to a patient and didn't realize that the person comes from a cultural that doesn't observe clocks? Or if you presumed that a mother was ignoring her child because you didn't understand that in her culture, it is the grandmother who is in charge?

Diversity is about recognizing that there are worlds that are different than your own. It's not about political correctness.

Freedom42, That was beautifully stated!

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What I did whenever a choice of topic was involved (in an APA formatted paper) was to simply search for articles. Sometimes only one topic had enough nursing research articles to meet the minimum requirement, or one would have an overwhelming amount of research. That's what I'd pick. Now you don't really have a list of topics here, but as you search on terms like "cultural nursing problems" (in "and" mode; of course you will tweak it as you go) you will probably see that some one area has more case studies, literature reviews, and original research than the others. Maybe you'll find a case study where a language barrier caused an adverse outcome, and at the same time find many articles about translator phones. Something like that is what you want. Whether you like the subject or not isn't as important as having enough research.

Dear Anonymurse, THANK YOU! You've made a difficult project, very doable!

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Here's one: a Oaxacan woman was brought to the ER by her husband because she had not been feeling well for several months, getting worse. She was in her 30's. She was diagnosed with DM in the ER and was admitted to the ICU for DKA. She was not my pt but I did have contact with her as I started her IV. I was off for two days and when I came back I was told that all of us who had contact with her had to be seen in emp health because she was found to have severe head lice: the admitting doc was bent over her bed to check her ears and the ICU nurse saw the little buggers jumping onto his head!!

Problem: she absolutely, adamantly refused to bathe while in the ICU. Social Services got involved and she still refused. Tried to get the husband to help and he not only refused to help, he supported his wife. We had always thought that Oaxacan immigrants did not bathe because of lack of water, since many live in poorly maintained labor camps. Turns out that Oaxacans believe that bathing is bad for you because it washes off the protection on the skin, and one will get sicker. No amount of education would change her mind. They lived in a house with their children and two other families and it turned out all of them were lice-infested. I don't know the outcome of the families but I know that Social Services was involved as well as the Dept of Health, but her ICU room had a terminal cleaning when she left.

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Thanks Tazzi, now my head is just itching :uhoh3:

We have a large Hmong population nearby. A grand multip Hmong woman came in and had a precipitous delivery with a severe PP bleed. The MD spoke with the husband and obtained "informed consent" to control the bleeding surgically, possibly with a hysterectomy. After the hysterectomy and a couple days in ICU, mom and baby were physically OK - BUT..... Both the woman and her husband told staff they wish she would have died instead of having the hysto. Turns out that in their culture if they go to their grave without all of their parts, they do not get to go to their form of heaven.

I know the nurses involved wrote an article and it was published in MCN - I can PM you the primary author's name if you would like it.

Good luck.

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Thanks Tazzi, now my head is just itching :uhoh3:

:rolleyes: Sorry......

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Diversity is not about treating people with respect regardless of their culture. It's about appreciating different points of view and recognizing that they exist. For example, what if you had to explain the timing of a careful drug regimen to a patient and didn't realize that the person comes from a cultural that doesn't observe clocks? Or if you presumed that a mother was ignoring her child because you didn't understand that in her culture, it is the grandmother who is in charge?

Diversity is about recognizing that there are worlds that are different than your own. It's not about political correctness.

True enough. Somehow, though, and you can start flaming me, it seems to come down to, in the final analysis, the dominant culture is bad and must do all the adjusting so that the minority culture can survive and thrive. And it is always up to us (the dominants, the establishment) to find a way. That's legitimate enough, I suppose, when we need to, for instance, teach patient care to a parent or spouse. It carries over, though, into the general culture and becomes racial or religious. And it's always the bigger more established group that is bad and must change.

There has been a lot of wrongdoing by majorities toward minorities in the past, but now what we have is the reverse. Just my opinion, flame away.:uhoh3:

ADD: Those of the dominant culture in the past who did such evil things to minorities are no longer here to pay for what they did. It is their descendants and those who are assumed to be their descendants because of similarities in appearance (but who are not their descendants and whose own ancestors weren't even in this country until recently) who get to pay now for what they did then.

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True enough. Somehow, though, and you can start flaming me, it seems to come down to, in the final analysis, the dominant culture is bad and must do all the adjusting so that the minority culture can survive and thrive. And it is always up to us (the dominants, the establishment) to find a way. That's legitimate enough, I suppose, when we need to, for instance, teach patient care to a parent or spouse. It carries over, though, into the general culture and becomes racial or religious. And it's always the bigger more established group that is bad and must change.

I'm not interested in a flame war. I'm curious, though, as to why you think that recognizing cultural differences -- of any kind -- means that "dominant culture is bad" and must make changes. You sound threatened.

Diversity is emphasized in nursing school so that students can ultimately give better care to patients. All of the examples cited on this thread are about recognizing, not judging, cultural differences. If diversity lessons carry over into the "general culture," are we not the better for it? Why do you presume that recognizing diversity means that someone has judged your culture as "bad?"

Personally, I want to live in a rich culture that continues to evolve, not one that values the status quo. I responded to this thread because I was troubled by a student who said she was sick of being "hit over the head" with the subject. It's usually people of privilege who see no need for diversity.

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Freedom, I think it's along the same lines that were covered in the bilingual education thread. I am totally against being forced to be bilingual, and bilingual education, however I believe in cultural diversity and respecting cultures.

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there is a thread about a nurse who was accused of being racist by family. i think its a good example.

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there is a thread about a nurse who was accused of being racist by family. i think its a good example.

a good example of what? i don't understand.

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Neither do I. The thread that refers to is just about racism. This thread is about cultural diversity. Way different.

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Specializes in Postpartum.

Whenever I had to write a paper like that I would pick an area I was interested in (OB for example) and then pick something that seemed strange or odd to me. This made the paper a learning experience that I would use down the road, so it wasn't as "blah" as writing a paper can sometimes be.

For Example, did you know that after birth some asian women will not drink cold liquids? In that culture birth is seen as a cold experience and to correct the imbalance they olny eat or drink hot items. There were cases where asian women would not eat or drink for days because they were only offered cold substances. It is also practiced in some cultures not to bath after birth.

Anyway, that is the area and the things that interest me, so the paper actually became as fun and informative as a paper can be.

Hope this helps.

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