Nursing Care and Cultural Competency

This assignment delves into the critical topic of cultural competence in nursing practice. It examines how implicit bias can influence a nurse's perceptions and actions towards patients from diverse backgrounds. The paper discusses the importance of recognizing and addressing these biases to ensure equitable and quality care for all patients. It also explores strategies for fostering culturally competent nursing, including promoting diversity within the profession and encouraging ongoing education on cultural sensitivity.

Running head: NURSING REFLECTION
Nursing Reflection
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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NURSING REFLECTION
Objective: A patient should never become victim of bias nursing care during to his or
her age, ethnicity, race or any other irrelevant characteristic. However, implicit associations
guide the nursing judgment resulting in bias judgment or attitude towards the patients. Such
bias judgments can be characterized under uncontrollable, unconscious or irrational
processes. Such implicit biasness also affects the non-verbal behaviour judgments like the
physical proximity or frequency of eye contact. Thus bias arising out of racial discrimination
changes the overall perspective of judgement, care, attitude and assumption of a nurse
towards the patients. It leads to potential dissociation between what the nurses explicitly
believes and what she wants to perform (like treat every patient equally) and other hidden
influence of negative implicit associations on her actions and thoughts. An example for this is
a black patient can be considered to be less competent and thus coming to a conclusion that
prescribing medication is not a solution (FitzGerald & Hurst, 2017). Not only the patients in
Canada, but the aboriginal healthcare professionals are also significantly under-represented in
Canada (Vukic et al., 2012).
Reflective: This bias attitude of the nurses towards their patients or the biasness
affecting their judgement towards a particular patient affects the ethos and ethics of nursing a
lot. Because, my institution of thought asks me to abide by a simple rule of quality care that
must be equally directed towards all the patients. I believe, in order to give quality care to the
patients; nurses must value the diversity of their patient. They must be equally aware of how
diverse cultural backgrounds and languages influence the provision of nursing care and thus
must function accordingly. I try to shape my thought process based on the background,
gender, ethnicity and education of the people. I never take ethnicity of the educational
background as framing up a negative perception about the patient. Like since he is an
aboriginal, he or she has not right to get quality care. On contrary, I utilised their gender,
ethnicity, cultural and education background as a source to frame my nursing intervention. I

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never allow “race”, “bias”, “attitude”, “judgment”, “care” and “assumption to intersect
my thoughts when I am delivering care to a patient. For example, a people coming from a
poor educational background is not aware of the basic hygiene regime, which are required to
be followed in daily life. This lack of hygiene makes them more susceptible to microbial
infection. So mere treating them with antibiotic is not enough because they will again become
victims of recurrent infection. So giving them proper education about the importance of
hygiene regime will be an ideal care plan for maintenance of health lifestyle. For me, the term
‘difference’ in nursing care means the cultural difference. Under the light of cultural
difference, I want to state that the transcultural nursing is an important aspect in health care.
The ever-increasing multi-cultural population in Canada cast a major challenge towards the
nurses in providing holistic care to individual patients. Nurses are required to understand and
then simultaneously appreciate the cultural differences in the grounds of the healthcare
values, customs and beliefs. I believe, this can only be achieved via acquiring the skills in the
domain of cultural competency. Tolerance must also be there in the domain of nursing and
this can be justified under the banner of zero tolerance. Deliberate discourtesy can be
detrimental for nursing and it threatens patient safety and the organizational climate. So, there
must remain zero tolerance in the grounds of incivility in nursing care (Hoffman & Chunta
2015).
Interpretive: According to Florence Nightingale, “Let whoever is in charge keep this
simple question in her head (not, how can I always do this right thing myself, but) how can I
provide for this right thing to be always done?” (Gorrell, 2013). This statement of
Florence is extremely significant in nursing profession. It instructs the nurses to deliver
quality care and that too via following traditional nursing ethics and not hampering the
interest of any nursing professional. According to Clara Barton, “You must never so much
think as whether you like it or not, whether it is bearable or not; you must never think of

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anything except the need, and how to meet it” (Forrester, 2016). This statement of Clara
Barton signifies that the nursing profession is not designed to go along the wish of the nurses,
her likes or dislikes or preference over the race, cast and gender. Nursing profession is solely
inclined towards the sole interest of the patients and his or her well-being, irrespective of the
cast, creed and gender. Beliefs, assumptions, and perceptions may affect nursing practice. A
nurse may frame a definite idea about a particular patient and may design the nursing care
plan accordingly. For example, a woman from a backward class is facing problem because of
her early age delivery and I as a nurse is thinking that women from such a backward class is
common to suffer from the delivery related complications. I am here framing an assumption
that the women from such cultural background are themselves responsible for their current
physical state and deserves no quality care. However, a thinking perspective of a nurse must
never be directed in such a way. After watching the state of a patient, the first thing, which
must come to the mind of a nurse, is how I can recover the patient from her current
deteriorating physical condition. Culture reference or her educational background should
never be used to judge that patients under any condition. So, the main actions that must be on
priority is quality care to the patients irrespective of the cultural diversity.
Decisional: I believe that the nurses must practice in a culturally competent manner.
They must accept the diversity of the people. This will help in the removal of the
discrepancies in the healthcare profession. On the other hand, nurse must work hard to induce
that the more detailed care to the patients who are belonging from the different race. This will
help to get rid of their mental instability and in turn will help them to attain the state of well-
being faster. Moreover, initiatives must also be undertaken in order to increase the number of
participation of the aboriginal people in Canada in nursing care profession. The Government
of Canada is also working towards the encouragement of the active nursing participation
among the aboriginal people in Canada via creating Aboriginal Nurses Association of Canada

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(ANAC) (Vukic et al., 2012). This equilibrium or the diversity among the nursing care
profession will bring in a harmony of quality care in the nursing profession. Moreover, the
aboriginal people who are mostly endangered from the threats of racial discrimination in
nursing care will feel relaxed and comfortable under the nursing care regime of the aboriginal
nurses. They will be able to freely discuss and share their thoughts and feelings to them and
this is extremely crucial for the people have different mother tongue.
I will recommend the future health care to follow the Practical Nursing Program. In
my relation to values, I will suggest that a nursing professional must consider a patient as
their main person of interest and must bestow their heart and soul for the betterment of their
physical and mental health. They must never have a judgmental attitude towards them, being
driven by the ethnicity, gender, race, educational and financial background. I as a future
health care professional will always try to practice in a culturally competent manner,
providing quality care to all my patients.

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References
FitzGerald, C., & Hurst, S. (2017). Implicit bias in healthcare professionals: a systematic
review. BMC medical ethics, 18(1), 19.
Forrester, D. A. (2016). Exemplary Nursing Leadership. Nursing's Greatest Leaders: A
History of Activism, 3.
Gorrell, G. K. (2013). Heart and soul: The story of Florence Nightingale. Tundra Books.
Hoffman, R. L., & Chunta, K. (2015). Workplace Incivility: Promoting Zero Tolerance in
Nursing. Journal of Radiology Nursing, 34(4), 222-227.
Vukic, A., Jesty, C., Mathews, S. V., & Etowa, J. (2012). Understanding race and racism in
nursing: Insights from Aboriginal nurses. ISRN nursing, 2012.