Personal interactions and cultural respect in nursing home settings

Self-Reflection

Nursing and culture sensitivity

There are no cultures that are superior to others within the social setting and the practices of each given community has specific reason for their existence hence the need to uphold such even within the nursing fraternity. This calls for culture sensitive nursing practices and behavior during the interaction between the nurse and the patient. Hitherto my learning on the nature of culturally sensitive nursing and its role in nursing, I viewed nursing as a practice and a profession that began and ended with the patient seeing the nurse for the particular illness and the nurse undertakes the routine checklist of the drugs administration. This however has changed and I realized that nursing is continuous and is interactive. It is continuous in a manner that even in the absence of the nurse, the interaction still goes on. If the nurse mishandled the patient or showed gestures of lack of care to the culture of the patient, the patient will remain with that image long after the nurse if gone and one seeing the same nurse coming to attend to him, he will have already formed a barrier between them hence the interaction may not be mutual and smooth.

In order to ensure that my patients feel comfortable with me as a nurse, I ensure that I study the religious belief and other personal beliefs that the client holds dear. These then guides me in the interaction with the client and how to treat him in a daily basis. I realized that there are some clients who get more open and closer to me as a nurse when I first talk a little about their beliefs and in a positive manner. This comes in form of the current affairs or the current news touching on what the love or likes to talk about.

Showing respect for the culture of my clients, bearing that I meet patients from different races, helps me to have a cordial relationship with them. This is one of the mots complex things to achieve but inevitably the central idea in nursing. Understanding the cultural belief a patient will enable me as a nurse then know the approach to medication that the patient will take and how I should guide the patient. There are some cultures that prefer a given age or gender to give them medical attention hence when such come up, I will know how to refer these patients to another nurse in order to ensure the culture of the patient is respected and yet the nursing care is also given. Recognition of the centrality of the culture of the patient ensures that there is ease in communication, enhanced understanding and confidence in the care (ACOG, 2011).