CLAS standards

I searched for the cultural competencies specific to nursing since that is my intended major. When comparing what I found to the CLAS standards, a big area of difference I noticed was that the nursing standards specifically mention self reflection on the part of the nurse. The idea is that s/he is able to actively acknowledge his or her own beliefs and values and then determine how that might affect his or her ability to provide care to a multitude of different patients. I think this is pretty critical in healthcare as we have seen the importance of understanding and acknowledging the validity of differing views.

An area of similarity is the cross cultural communication. Both the CLAS standards and the nursing standards focus on the importance of communicating effectively to a patient in a language that s/he will understand as well as non verbal cues that may be different for people from certain cultures. The fact that this is on both lists just highlights how important it really is to providing culturally competent care.

The site I found the nursing standards is:  http://tcns.org/files/StandardsofPracticeforCulturallyCompetentNursingCarearticle.pdf

Goals

After looking over the course objectives again and reflecting on my results from the quiz we took, I came up with three goals for myself that I would like to achieve, or at least make significant progress toward.

Goal 1. Learn the major differences between cultures and how that pertains to healthcare.

Goal 2. Actively adjust my preconceptions about different ethnicities and cultures

Goal 3. Open my medical knowledge to include what we in the west often call alternative medicine and acknowledge its benefits, both real and unsubstantiated, to patients.