Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal Essay Paper
Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal
This week’s responsibilities in the practicum site had me reflecting on the concept of culture in health care and develop a deeper understanding of the concept. Although I had a prior understanding of cultural influences in health care, I had never taken the time to reflect on the concept. My prior understanding was very shallow, and mainly remained at the level of language, especially when handling patients who do not have an understanding of English language and require the services of a translator in order to effectively communicate in care delivery. I believe that through reflecting on the concept of culture, I have now developed a deeper understanding of the concept and am better prepared to handle its inherent challenges (Truglio-Londrigan & Lewenson, 2018). Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal Essay Paper
My new understanding of culture is that it is the shared patterns of behavior, customs and ideas for a particular society or group of people. It is culture that identifies any group as unique and differentiates it from other groups. Within the concept of culture are subsets that characterize each unique group and denote diversity. These subsets include life experiences, upbringing, education, history, geographical origin, sexual orientation, age, socio-economic status, gender, spiritual and religious beliefs, language, and ethnicity. Even as I developed an understanding of culture, I noted that culture cannot be generalized for any particular group. That is because culture is evolving and dynamic so that what is true for a cultural group now may not necessarily remain true for that group in the future (Truglio-Londrigan & Lewenson, 2018).
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Besides these understandings, I also developed an awareness of culture as a continuum of elements. Each culture has subconscious elements that may not readily be apparent (such as beliefs and values), and explicit elements that are visible (such as festivals, dressing, language, food and music). In addition, culture can be individualistic or collectivistic thus creating a spectrum with individual variations noted for members of the culture across the spectrum. Still, it is important for nurses to be aware of and familiar with the spectrum and the characteristics along the spectrum as this is helpful for locating where each individual patient falls within the cultural continuum and to personalize the nursing care delivered (Renpinning, Gerbhardt-Taylor & Pickens, 2016).
The individualistic and collectivistic cultures can give rise to different views on causes of illness, diagnoses, treatment and human health. Depending on where each individual patient fits along the cultural continuum, the nurse can filter the information that can be presented to the family, such as deciding on whether or not to include the extended family in discussions about origin of illness, diagnosis and treatment. In fact, in one of the peculiar cases, the extended family had to provide consent before the patient could be subjected to certain diagnostic and therapeutic interventions (Helming, Shields & Avino, 2020).
Overall, my reflection on how culture impacts nursing care delivery led me to the awareness that health is a cultural concept since culture shapes and frames how all health care stakeholders perceive the world and their experiences. To be more precise, culture has an influence on how various diseases and treatment options are perceived, degree of understanding and compliance with the recommended treatment options, patient interactions with health care providers, behavior in seeking nursing care (where, when and how), and how pain and illness are expressed and experienced. In addition, culture influences the types of health promotion activities that are recommended and practiced, which conditions/diseases are stigmatized and why, what is believed about diseases and their causes (such as attributing illness to evil spirits), and how health and illness is perceived (McEwen & Wills, 2018).
As a nurse, I can apply my new understanding and awareness of culture by considering how my own cultural behaviors, values and beliefs affect interactions with patients. Also, respecting, understanding and working with different cultural perceptions, arranging for appropriate interpreters where needed, applying active listening, and understanding that complementary and alternative therapies may be used by the family. Additionally, negotiating the nursing care plan based on shared understanding and agreement, and determining how best to communicate with the patient in terms of visual or spoken messaging for reasons of limited literacy or culture (McEwen & Wills, 2018).
Furthermore, I have developed a greater appreciation of health disparities as preventable differences in the opportunities or burden of violence, injury and disease to achieve optimal health. My capstone project topic focuses on the issue of nursing shortage, and this issue has highlighted the fact that resources are limited so that not every person would have access to the required nursing resources. With the existing shortage, there are no enough nurses to handle all the patients for effective care delivery. This state of affairs has resulted in disadvantaged populations experiencing health disparities as their access to nurses is inequitable because of historical and/or current unequal distribution of environmental, economic, political and social resources. Through my capstone project that seeks to address the issue of nursing shortage, I would effectively be addressing the issue of health disparities by increasing access to nurses so that members of disadvantaged groups having increased access to nurses (Helming, Shields & Avino, 2020). As a result, this week I reflected on the concept of culture in health care, and how my capstone project relates to solving the problem of health disparities.
References
Helming, M., Shields, D., & Avino, K. (2020). Dossey & Keegan’s Holistic Nursing: A Handbook for Practice (8th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
McEwen, M., & Wills, E. (2018). Theoretical Basis for Nursing (5th ed.). Wolters Kluwer.
Renpinning, K., Gebhardt-Taylor, S., & Pickens, J. (2016). Foundations of Professional Nursing: Care of Self and Others. Springer Publishing Company.
Truglio-Londrigan, M., & Lewenson, S. (Eds.) (2018). Public Health Nursing: Practicing Population-Based Care (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
Professional Capstone and Practicum Reflective Journal Essay Paper
