Guided Reflection on Contemporary Indigenous Health and Wellbeing

This essay presents a student's guided reflection on their experiences and learning within the context of contemporary Indigenous health and wellbeing. The student utilizes Gibbs' reflective cycle and the ABCD cultural assessment model to analyze their initial assumptions, feelings, and beliefs regarding interacting with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Through three specific learning activities, the essay explores how the student's perspectives have evolved, detailing emotional responses and insights gained from these interactions. The student discusses the impact of the subject on their decision-making and future nursing practice, highlighting the importance of cultural sensitivity, communication skills, and the application of relevant nursing standards and attributes. The essay is supported by relevant literature and aims to demonstrate a deep understanding of the subject matter, personal growth, and the development of cultural competence in healthcare settings. The student also provides an action plan for future interactions.

Running Head: HEALTHCARE 0
contemporary indigenious health well-being

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Description
Judy is an Australian aboriginal who suffered from type two Diabetics. The type 2 Diabetics had
caused ulcer in one of her legs. The ulcer had made mobility difficult for her. She is a high-
school teacher by profession who retired from the job due to health issues. The lack of healthcare
facility and transportation to visit to the nearest healthcare center has made difficult for her to
avail the healthcare facility. As a community Nurse, I got the request from Aboriginal Liaison
officer to do the daily dressing of her leg. Such kind of initiatives by Australian Government are
under Closing the gap policy to reduce the difference between in the healthcare positions of
Aboriginal and Australian population. It is being a long time that I have been dealing with the
aboriginals. I have developed good connections with them.
Feelings
During my first visit, I felt very incompatible of caring for the aboriginals as I used to think that I
lack set of skills to provide the best quality of nursing to the aboriginals. My first patient was
Judy who was a 57-year-old lady and suffered from a leg ulcer due to diabetes. I was asked to do
her dressings by Aboriginal license officer. On visiting her, I could sense the difference in the
knowledge of aboriginal and non-aboriginal Australians to comprehend the healthcare treatment.
Initially, when I first visited her, I was very apprehensive of her reaction but after interaction
with her, I could sense the warmth in connecting with her. when I was doing her dressing, I
could catch the inexperienced look on her face as if the dressing materials were new to her.
Before visiting the Aboriginal woman, I had the belief that these people are just like the
Australians and the good amount of globalization must have made them the informed Australian
but after visiting, I realized that they are lagging far behind the Australians. I used to visit the old
woman’s house daily for dressings, after interacting with them I developed the belief that these
Australian prefer being treated at home than going to hospitals for the good treatment. Their
belief in homemade treatment was developed due to the orthodox practice of treating the illness
in village. Every day, I used to visit her for dressing and she used to entertain me with the stories
of her life that how she delivered her children by herself with no assistance of medical facilities
in those days. These stories made me think that how strong, the aboriginal women are. It
developed in me the belief that due to high level of spiritual consciousness, they try to avoid the
treatment as they think that their self-created gods will help them through the situation.

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Evaluation
My visits to aboriginals as a community nurse gave me a great learning experience. The good
experience I had, taught me a lot about their culture system and belief. It gave me the knowledge
about their less participation in the healthcare system. The prime reason behind this is their high
-level of orthodox belief for curing the diseases. Moreover, the low level of literacy was also the
reason behind their decreased awareness regarding health. The good connections that I
developed with people their helped in better understanding of their lives and building good
connections with them. One of the experiences, I had when I treated a young aboriginal, who
suffered from chickenpox and got absolutely cured. He gifted me with pair of handmade
keyrings which I still cherish a lot. Besides these, great experiences, I had many bad ones also
when I had to encounter various embarrassing situations during my visits. The reason behind
those situations was my incompetency to interact with the people as I lacked skills for coming
across with them intelligently. In one of experiences, I got into the altercation with one of the
patients when he discussed the discriminative behavior of the Australians towards their
community. Going back on my previous experiences, I could say that my initial theoretical
learnings in nursing through videos and plays had been of great help.
The learning activities included the three videos that were shown to us. One was, on closing the
gap policy (Tavella, 2016). In the video, a play was directed to convey the right way of closing
the gap by right interaction with them. (Casey, 2014). The other learning that helped me in my
interaction was the video on developing the good therapeutic relations with the aboriginals that
was portrayed through a nurse and an aboriginal. The third learning that I had was again from a
video where Aboriginal liaison officer was instructing on the right behavior towards the
aboriginals.
The closing the gap policy video, had taught me the ways to deal with aboriginal. There was one
incident where excessive questioning from the old woman had irritated me and I was about to
speak harshly to her but were remembered of the advice of being polite to them from the video.
The video also showed the importance of the closing gap policy through a role-play. That the
policy was of great help for the people like Judy who is financially dependent for the healthcare.
As Judy was a window and lacked funds for her treatment, she can get the financial assistance
from the bank. During the dressing session, I also used to educate her regarding the benefits she

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can avail from the policy. The learning from the video had indeed made my visit to Judy fruitful
thus building good connection with her.
The learning, which I had from the second video where a short film was shown on the interaction
between the nurse and an aboriginal. The goal of the video was to teach the nurses to develop
good therapeutic relations with the aboriginals. As good therapeutic relations lead to the
improved recovery rate of the population. The components of it include trust, empathy, genuine
connections, and positive relation. As a nurse to Judy, I developed the meaningful relation with
her. I used to communicate with her effectively and emphatically knowing about her problems. I
used to resolve her personal problems just by communication. The communication developed
good connections between us and she became more receptive of the services provided by the
Aboriginal Medical services and the liaison officers.
In the third video, I have learned about the dos and don’ts while interacting with the aboriginals.
In the video, the Aboriginal Liaison officer discussed about the appropriate way of interaction
with aboriginals (Grant & Draper, 2018).In the video, I have learned that never show the
disagreement to the aboriginals as they will distance themselves from us (Shen, 2015). One day,
I started arguing on a topic with the old woman then after few seconds, I could sense the
altercation and I brought back the conversation to the normal terms. The video of the Aboriginal
officer has been great for me to rightly interact with her. The incident was important to teach me
the ways of interacting with the community in future (Law, 2017)..
Analysis
Interaction with the aboriginals has completely changed my perspectives regarding them. Earlier,
I felt that the aboriginals must be aware of the right kind of healthcare treatment but I was
wrong. My interaction with Judy taught me that they never considered going to hospitals when
they fell ill. They were more prone on taking the orthodox steps of curing themselves from the
disease. I with my daily dressing session with Judy knew the importance of incorporating RN
standards in my practice as my application of those standards made Judy more receptive of
treatment (Grace, 2017). Before, Judy, I interacted with one of the aboriginals in the hospital

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where I considered them at par with non-aboriginals. My interaction with him lacked the
application of RN standards after it that person never came again to the hospital (Lewinson,
2015)l. After months later when I reflected, I found that aboriginals are the ones who are in most
need of care and love. They are the ones who need the right kind of nurse who incorporates UTS
graduate attributes, UTs indigenous graduate attributes and RN standards in the practice (Webb,
2017). In my first meeting, I was very edgy as how I would be treated at the Judy home whether
she would be receptive with my work or not. In initial days, I was just concerned about my
dressing session disregarding the importance of RN attributes. As after few days, our
conversation naturally started on their culture. During the conversation, I used to show my
respect to their culture that is one of the attributes of UTS indigenous graduate attribute
(Cummins, 2018). I noticed that she became calmer and more responsive to my treatment and
started taking interest in the Australian healthcare system. Apart from showing respect to her
culture, I used to engage with her in fruitful conversation where we used to exchange lots of
laugh and smiles with each other. The effective conversation acted as a way for her emotional
and mental healing. Through conversations, she was able to bring on the table, her sufferings.
The conversation served as a way for her to let go of her past sufferings that improved her
recovery rate in fighting the leg ulcer. An effective conversation and leadership are important
attributes of UTS graduate attributes (Power, 2018).
The interaction taught me the importance of incorporating these standards and guidelines into
conversation with Aboriginals. When I reflected upon the reason behind such good and positive
behavior from my patient Judy, I got to know that it was good communication skills and the
behavior of respecting her culture that made her so positively open to the conversation and
resulted in high recovery rate. This interaction had positively impacted by future nursing practice
with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander. As in future, I would me more sensitive to their needs
and will respect their cultural tradition.
Conclusion
Looking at my good and bad experiences as a nurse I could say that by inculcating various
elements of UN attributes, RN standards and UN indigenous attributes, I can better my
interaction with the aboriginals. As in my cases, the reason for bad relations with them was my

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attitude of instantly losing composure with them. I can achieve the better and stronger relations
with the aboriginals by maintaining the composure, respecting their cultural sentiments, and
acting more empathetic with them.
Action Plan
As a community nurse, in my next interaction with aboriginals, I would greet them in Tiwi
language. As greeting them in their language will help in the development of good connection
with them. I would be more empathetic with their situation as being empathetic would bring in
more understanding in the conversation. I would try to portray them that I highly respect their
culture and tradition as this would breed more of trust with the community members. I would
treat them as my most important clients whose needs are my top most priority

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References
Casey, K. F. (2014). The graduate nurse experience. The Journal of Nursing Administration,,
23(2), 303-311.
Cummins, A. S. (2018). Midwifery Graduate Attributes: A model for curriculum development
and education. Journal of Midwifery, 61(2), 66-69.
Grace, R. E. (2017). Educational & Developmental Psychology. Australian Journal of
Educational & Developmental Psychology, 15(2), .35-52.
Grant, R., & Draper, N. (2018). The importance of Indigenous Health Liaison Officers and
family meetings to improve cardiovascular outcomes in Indigenous Australians.
Australian and New Zealand journal of public health,, 42(5), 499-500.
Law, W. S. (2017). Digital terrain analysis reveals new insights into the topographic context of
Australian Aboriginal stone arrangements. Archaeological Prospection, 24(2), 169-179.
Lewinson, L. M. (2015). Spirituality in pre-registration nurse education and practice: A review
of the literature. Nurse education today, 35(6), 806-814.
Power, T. V. (2018). REM: A collaborative framework for building indigenous cultural
competence. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 27(5), 439-446.
Shen, Z. (2015). Cultural competence models and cultural competence assessment instruments in
nursing: a literature review. Journal of Transcultural Nursing, 26(3), 308-321.
Tavella, R. M. (2016). Disparities in acute in‐hospital cardiovascular care for Aboriginal and
non‐Aboriginal South Australians. Medical Journal of Australia,, 205(5), .222-227.
Webb, L. C. (2017). The utility and impact of information communication technology (ICT) for
pre-registration nurse education: A narrative synthesis systematic review. Nurse
education today,, 48(2), 160-171.

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