Cultural Competency Article Analysis

Throughout the course of the semester, the most talked about topic is cultural competence. The book defined cultural competence as “the ability to effectively provide services cross culturally” (Jandt, 2013). This term is important in the health care field because a variety of people from different cultures will be encountered. As a result, a conflict may arise between the health care provider and the patient, and it is the nurse’s job to provide the best care that accommodates the patient’s views as well. In order to provide the best care, the journal article provides ways on how to treat patients who have opposing views. To begin, the journal article is broken up into three sections. The first section, conceptual framework, gives the foundation on how to become more culturally competent. The second section, cultural skill, explains how to understand patients of different culture. Finally, the last section, cultural encounters, brings all the information that is explained in the two sections into practice. In the first section, a model depicts how important it is for a nurse to become culturally competent rather than be culturally competent. The model explains that a nurse should be open to learning about different cultures because some nurses assume that they know enough, but actually they do not know.

In addition, this journal article ties in with what we are learning in class as well such as verbal and nonverbal communications, what it means to be cultural competent, and how to properly handle opposing views professionally when treating a patient. I found this article to be very interesting especially the vignette at the end. Even though I will not be going into the nursing field, I think that the same techniques can be applied as a nutritionist because certain cultures and religious groups have different views on what is acceptable to eat like meat for