Glorious nursing care has at all times been equated with offering secure, acceptable and compassionate patient-centered care. Embodying these qualities are a should for any nurse, and these ideas have at all times been a trademark of nursing training.
Offering care requires a deep understanding and respect for the variations which will exist amongst sufferers, reminiscent of variations in look, costume, dietary habits, non secular practices and beliefs. It includes recognizing and valuing these variations to ship compassionate and personalised care that honors every affected person’s distinctive id and experiences.
This work, pushed by the influence of social determinants of well being and the hyperlink between spirituality and higher outcomes, emphasizes dialogue, bridge-building and intercultural competence. Via engaged educating, I assist college students acknowledge, respect and incorporate variations, fostering a deeper understanding of how these elements affect affected person care.
To facilitate understanding of those points within the classroom, I designed an interactive puzzle to assist nursing college students embrace holistic, patient-centered care and study to understand the number of elements that inform affected person’s lives and their well being care choices. Components reminiscent of tradition, gender, group, religion and spirituality can considerably influence folks’s well being and choices.
College students start the venture with a clean puzzle within the form of a human physique. Every week in school, as college students examine the physique system, study to evaluate that system and apply on one another and mannequins, they acquire medical data and expertise.
However medical expertise alone usually are not sufficient to offer holistic care. College students want data, consolation and publicity to elements that influence affected person care and resolution making. After specializing in hands-on expertise, I work to assist nursing college students develop in intercultural competence and humility by incorporating studying about numerous cultures, weight loss program, costume, rituals, religion/spirituality practices and their influence on care. We search to know, as an illustration, how a Sikh affected person’s head protecting is rooted of their perception of modesty and desire for a identical intercourse well being care supplier. We discover Muslin sufferers’ desire for a pork-free weight loss program and which affected person inhabitants is perhaps extra more likely to refuse blood merchandise, amongst different subjects. My aim is to problem college students’ preconceived assumptions and luxury ranges and encourage them to see issues by means of the affected person’s eyes.
The ultimate step within the puzzle venture is for college students to “beautify” their puzzle to know that every affected person is excess of the sum of their elements. Via this venture, they not solely acquire a deeper understanding and consciousness of their friends and grow to be extra related as a cohort, however they’re additionally left with tangible fashions representing intercultural consciousness and competency — the power to know, respect, look after and work nicely with folks from various backgrounds.
One other necessary think about creating nursing college students’ intercultural competence is enhancing their religion/spiritually literacy, which takes heart stage in my Bridging Religion and Well being initiative. Together with colleagues from the Elon College non secular research division, this interdisciplinary initiative brings collectively pre-licensure nursing, doctor assistant and bodily remedy college students (in addition to their school and workers) to discover and talk about the influence of religion, faith and spirituality on holistic affected person care and well being outcomes. Over three weeks, individuals discover modules that cowl the significance of religion in care, the function of spirituality in supporting sufferers’ non secular wants and insights from non secular leaders on offering care.
Via interactive dialogue, case research, panel discussions and evidenced based-practice, college students construct religiosity data, communication expertise and consciousness to higher help sufferers who incorporate religion, spirituality and/or faith into their well being care decision-making. For instance, in a case examine that explored finish of life rituals, college students mentioned how they may honor a affected person’s needs that the deceased stay untouched, intact (no organ donation) and unmoved for a interval in immediately’s fast-paced inpatient hospital setting the place mattress house is restricted. Upon completion of the collection, college students earned a micro-credential on Religion and Well being literacy whereas constructing bridges to higher holistic, individualized patient-centered care.
All through each time period, I consistently return to my guiding query: What does wonderful nursing care appear like and the way can I train nursing college students to ship this care? To me, it’s patient-centered and holistic care — care that takes cultural consciousness and spirituality under consideration, is compassionate and evidenced-based. In different phrases, wonderful nursing care is delivered by an rising nurse who understands, acknowledges and appreciates that delivering care by means of the affected person’s eyes can flip a life round.
Elon College Assistant Professor of Nursing Jeanmarie Koonts, MSN, CNE, has held a wide range of medical and educational positions all through her skilled profession. Via dialogue, bridge-building and engaged educating methods, she strives to assist college students acknowledge, respect and incorporate the variations they expertise to higher serve their sufferers.
