How To Become A Transcultural Nurse

The following steps are involved in becoming a transcultural nurse:

Firstly you need to get your Nursing Diploma, Associate of Science in Nursing (ASN) or Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) from a school or university that offers nursing programs.

Secondly it is necessary to pass the National Council Licensure Examination (NCLEX-RN) and become licensed through your state’s board of nursing.

Once you have passed the exam, you can start working as a Registered Nurse and gain the experience needed.

Fourthly you need to pass the Transcultural Nurse certification exam in order to finally become a Certified Transcultural Nurse.

This qualification will equip you to provide physical, emotional, and spiritual care depending on the needs of your patients’ culture, and most transcultural nurses are employed in hospitals, community clinics, and outpatient facilities.

In many ways this is a line of work that prepares you well for the public health sector of nursing as you will be uniquely equipped to deal sensitively with all cultural demographics in your community with the degree of respect and equality that all human beings rightly deserve.

History Of The Theorist

Transcultural nursing is also known as Culture Care theory and only fairly recently has it begun to be accepted as a genuine discipline. The founder of transcultural nursing is generally considered to be Madeleine Leininger, and she was one of the first nursing theorists and transcultural global nursing consultants. With her MSN in nursing from the Catholic University in Washington DC and her PhD in anthropology from the University of Washington she developed the concept of transcultural nursing and the ethno nursing research model. Born in 1925, Leininger dies very recently on August 10th, 2012, but her contributions to the field will not be soon forgotten. Following in her footsteps many associations have sprung up with transcultural nursing as their core pursuit, and it appears that an acceptance of diverse cultures in nursing practice is becoming more widespread across the country, although this has so far been a slow transformation. Many people have come to realize what Leininger already did: it is impossible and undesirable for cultures to remain isolated in this world and, consequently, transcultural methods for care need to be developed across the globe.

Major Concepts

According to currentnursing.com the main concepts of transcultural nursing involve:

“Illness and wellness are shaped by various factors including perception and coping skills, as well as the social level of the patient.

Cultural competence is an important component of nursing.

Culture influences all spheres of human life. It defines health, illness, and the search for relief from disease or distress.

Religious and Cultural knowledge is an important ingredient in health care.

The health concepts held by many cultural groups may result in people choosing not to seek modern medical treatment procedures.

Health care provider need to be flexible in the design of programs, policies, and services to meet the needs and concerns of the culturally diverse population, groups that are likely to be encountered.

Most cases of lay illness have multiple causalities and may require several different approaches to diagnosis, treatment, and cure including folk and Western medical interventions.

The use of traditional or alternate models of health care delivery is widely varied and may come into conflict with Western models of health care practice.

Culture guides behavior into acceptable ways for the people in a specific group as such culture originates and develops within the social structure through inter personal interactions.

For a nurse to successfully provide care for a client of a different cultural or ethnic to background, effective intercultural communication must take place”.

Application To Nursing

This form of nursing involves an acceptance of the fact that different patients have different and unique beliefs regarding things such as illness and how to go about treating illness, as well as what practices are appropriate and which are not. Patients’ opinions can vary greatly depending on the following factors:

Their beliefs

Their values

Their spirituality

Their culture

These are all aspects of the patient’s worldview that must be taken into consideration and awarded due respect during care. Transcultural nurses will also offer to help patients develop with them a program of physical, emotional and spiritual self-care by introducing therapies such as ayurveda and pancha karma to the treatment sessions. Specific treatment options for each patient must be considered in terms of what can be deduced regarding the patient’s culture.