Guest Author - Helen V. Calalang-Javier, MSN, RNC, IBCLC

Culture is another buzzword on the rise. Oftentimes, culture is associated with values, beliefs, lifeways, or ideas of certain ethic or race of people, however the culture concept has expanded to various domain such as the healthcare culture, nursing culture, patient safety culture, research culture, leadership culture, corporate culture, culture care, and so on. But does anyone understand the importance of knowing these cultures and how to communicate effectively?

According to the nursing theorist, Madeleine Leininger in her 2001 book entitled Culture Care Diversity and Universality: A Theory of Nursing, "Culture refers to the learned, shared, and transmitted values, beliefs, norms, lifeways of a particular group that guides their thinking, decisions, and actions in patterned ways." Every individual has culture imprinted since birth as well the acquired or adhered to culture from the workplace established by the society, certain standards, or code of ethics when dealing with certain event, crises situation, or interaction with another individual.

Just recently, I attended a continuing education class on cultural diversity in nursing. During the class there was a presentation on Cultural Diversity in Nursing regarding the Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Spanish and what I came away from that event realizing was that there are more similarities than differences among these ethnic groups with regards to norms, family hierarchy and values, health, illness, death and dying. Moreover, language is the most important bridge to establish a connection in effective communication. For example, the Chinese have so many subcultures and languages depending where one comes from, i.e., highlands or lowlands and uses Mandarin as the unifying language to communicate with each other. Most countries in the world have more than one spoken language and the only country that is known to be unilingual is Iceland and the most multilingual is Papua New Guinea that has 750 spoken languages.

Is it possible to have one universal language of care to narrow the gap in cultural diversity and reduce disparities in healthcare? How does cultural competence interplay with evidence-based care i.e., patient's personal choice versus evidenced-based care standards? How can the facility achieve excellent rating in patient satisfaction survey?

It is time to think bicultural and bilingual and here are some tips for you:

• Learn the universal language of caring, respect, choice, and love
  
• Always treat others with respect. Respecting ones choice and expressions will re-affirm concern and caring.
  
• Allow the patient and family to verbalize their concern.
  
• Encourage and engage the patient to ask question or to ask about the care being given.
  
• Provide more information about certain disease processes or conditions and the positive outcome of treatment modalities. The more informed the patient, the less restrictions one have when receiving the care.
  
• Always do what is right and emphasize the importance of doing the right thing, with patient safety culture in mind.
  
• Develop one concept of looking into the patient as a universal human being without color, race, culture
  
• Provide a caring attitude that transcend to one language of wellness and health
  
• Always incorporate biculturalism (yours and theirs) to narrow the gaps in cultural diversity.
  

Cultural diversity is going to exist in every aspect of nursing. Diversity is a challenge to bring up the best within you and stimulate critical thinking. It is best to embrace it and make use of the richness of its value in creating a culturally and linguistically appropriate care.

To learn more about Dr. Madeleine Leininger's Nursing Theory on Culture Care: Diversity and Universality, visit Transcultural Nursing Society

To join the nursing organization on Trancultural Nursing Society, visit Membership Application

Looking for Global Executive Education on Culture visit,Global Language and Cultural Programs

Books/articles/journal for additional links:

Journal of Transcultural Nursing

The Many Faces Of Diversity: Overview and Summary


Clinical Nurse Specialists as Cultural Brokers, Change Agents, and Partners in Meeting the Needs of Culturally Diverse Populations