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Journal for NUR 3393: Transcutural Nursing
This class was a very busy class full of many assignments. I found that this class on
Transcutural Nursing was about cultural desire, awareness, knowledge, skills, and encounters.
In Chapter 4 of A Biblically Based Model of Cultural Competence by J. Campinha-
Bacote PhD focuses on our journey of cultural awareness and competence development. There
are seven questions on p. 27-28 in this chapter to help answer the question, “Where are you on
your journey of cultural awareness and development of cultural competency?”
The cultural/ethnic group, socio- economic class, religion, age, and community I belong
to is Caucasian middle class, in my early twenties. I belong to Untied Methodist Presbyterian
church. I live in mid-western, small farming community.
I have not had very many experiences with other people of cultural groups, socio-
economic classes, religions, age group, or communities that are very different than myself. This
is mostly due to where I live and work. Through work I have some experience through Amish,
Fed. Med. and Spanish speaking patients.
I first felt nervous dealing with cultures other than my own now I find it interesting to
work with people with different view than my own. It gives me the opportunity to learn new
things about the different cultures around me.
When I was growing up, my parents use to tell me not to bring up differences about other
people to their face. I could ask my mom in private about other people and their differences form
me but I would get in trouble if I ever asked any one else or asked cultural differences in public.
My mom told me to treat people courteously know matter what they look like because I might
also be judge by my culture by others.
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My cultural/ethnic group, socio- economic class, religion, age, and community that I first
felt embarrassed or unsure of is treating a Fed.Med. patient. It was intimidating to go in and do
nursing interventions on the man for the first time.
Personal qualities I have that will help establish interpersonal relations with persons of
other cultures are my abilities to listen to others and observe another person’s nonverbal
communication.
Personal qualities that could be detrimental is that I do have a habit of thinking everyone
can relate to my culture and that there culture is similar to mine. I believe this is because I live
and work in an area where cultures don’t really vary to much form my own.
I am on journey of cultural awareness and development of cultural competency. I feel
like that I am farther down this road than I was before this class. Before this class I was unaware
of the varying differences between the many cultures that surround us in our day to day lives.
With this class I have become more aware of the diverse cultures around me and I am more
interested in researching the different cultures.
This class has finally drawn to a close. In the first week we discussed cultural awareness
and cultural desire. I realized that you had to want to learn about other cultures for this class to
be affective. I also used two cultural tools to figure out where I was as cultural competent adult. I
also read Prayer: Folk Home Remedy vs. Spiritual Practice by Linda R. Easom which looks at
Caucasians, African-American, and Hispanic populations and their use of prayer in folk home
remedy and spiritual practice. During the second week it was all about cultural knowledge. This
was the week I did a power point on Mexican Americans and learned about their health care
needs. This is also the week of the first test where it I was tested on communication, space, social
organization, time, environmental control, and biologic variation of cultures. The third week was
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all about cultural skill. I discussed my cultural assessment on a Canadian friend. I also read an
article called Cultural Aspects of American Indian HIV/AIDS Prevention by Mcintosh and
Eschiti is about the Native American culture living in Oklahoma and how to educate them in the
prevention of contracting HIV/AIDS. Exam two I studied the cultures of African Americans,
Mexicans Americans, American Indians, Appalachian Americans, American Eskimos, Japanese
Americans, Afghan American, Russian Americans, and Chinese Americans. Next was week four
which was themed with cultural encounters. I wrote a research paper on person belonging to the
Canadian culture and did a culture assessment tool on them. Also I discussed tools that can be
used for communication including nonverbal tools. During this discussion board I went into
disparities in health care. On exam three the cultures I was tested on was Filipino Americans,
Vietnamese Americans, East Indian Americans, Haitian Americans, Jewish Americans, Korean
Americans, Puerto Rican American, and Canadian Americans. Finally on week five it was all
about where I stood on culturally competent continuum. In the final discussion board was about
conflict and latent workplace conflict. I answered the question involving B-ASKED. The final
exam was on Nigerian Americans, Ugandan Americans, Jordanian Americans, Arab Americans,
Amish Americans, and Irish Americans.
The most significant information I have learned is about all the variances among cultures
and how people of these cultures differ from each other. This will assist me in my nursing
practice because I will be more aware of cultural expectations and what is expected of me as the
healthcare provider.
The assignments that facilitated learning was the different discussion boards because they
require you to do reading out side the required text but also cause you to think critically about the
subject of that week.
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There was no one a assignment that hindered the learning process for me. My biggest
issue was the time constraints and the amount of work due by the schedule.
Transcutural Nursing helped expand my cultural desire, awareness, knowledge, skills,
and encounters.
