Hi. I'm Meris. And in today's video, we're going to be talking about cultural considerations,
along with complementary and alternative medicine. I'm going to be following along
with our Fundamentals of Nursing flashcards. These are available on our website at leveluprn.com.
If you have a set already, and you're following along with me, we're going to be
starting on card number 26. So let's get started. Okay. So first up in cultural considerations,
let's start with what is a culture? So a culture's going to be shared beliefs,
values, and/or customs that are influenced by race, geographic location,
ethnicity, language, those sorts of things. We strive to provide something called culturally
competent care, meaning that we are meeting our patient's religious and cultural needs as well
as their health and medical needs because this improves patient care and improves their outcomes
and their feelings on the care that they received. When it comes to culturally competent care,
we need to start with a cultural assessment. Cultural assessment's going to be essentially
just identifying what your patient's cultural/religious/spiritual needs
are. And the ways that we can cater to those, what our best practices may be.
This may also influence things like the medication that a patient receives, the therapies they
receive, and even things like postmortem care. We also want to talk about something called
ethnocentrism. Ethnocentrism is the belief that one's own culture is superior to somebody else's.
This is not a belief that we should have as nurses. This is going to be a negative
connotation for culturally competent care. We do have a key point icon here which
means pretty important. Cultural competency begins
with identifying your own beliefs and values so that then you have an idea of where you're
coming from. So the nurse should start by identifying his or her own beliefs and values.
Next up, let's talk about language and interpreter use. So you will be caring for patients who speak
many languages. And it is important to understand that patients have a legal right to have a medical
interpreter available to interpret for them. Notice that I said a medical interpreter. We do
not want to use a patient's friends or family members to interpret if at all
possible. We want to be using an approved medical interpreter hired by the facility.
It's also to understand that when we use a medical interpreter,
we have some ways that we can communicate best with the patient when using an interpreter.
For instance, we want to speak directly to the patient, not to the interpreter. We're
having the conversation with the patient. The interpreter is just assisting us.
So we're not having the conversation with the interpreter, so talk to your patient.
The other thing is when you are using an interpreter, try to ask what one question
at a time to allow the interpreter time to ask the patient and then give you the response.
And also, try to limit your use of additional hand gestures and things. So instead of saying,
"Do you want to eat?" just say, "Do you want to eat?" That is going to be best
practices for speaking with an interpreter. It's also important to understand that there
are different cultural practices that may influence the care that you provide.
This may be based on religion. So we have here some examples of
religious considerations here on card number 28. We do have a nice chart here for you.
But before I begin, I want to point out this key point at the bottom here, which is that
regardless of what your patient's stated religious practice is, every person practices differently,
so it is best not to assume based on these kinds of general religious preferences, but instead
ask your patient directly about any religious practices that they
may follow that would influence their care. For instance, Jehovah's Witnesses may refuse
blood products. So if they were having surgery, they may say that
they do not wish to have a blood transfusion. Patients who follow Islam, they may not want
pork products. They may not drink alcohol. Shellfish may be prohibited for their diet.
There may be special fasting considerations during the month of Ramadan.
You may need to make accommodations for your patient to be able to pray five times a day.
And female patients may request female care providers. So those are some possible
considerations for your Muslim patients. Now when it comes to Judaism,
some patients who are Jewish follow Kosher diets, but not all patients do, so you need to ask and
not assume. But if your patient does follow a Kosher diet, then this may mean that they have no
pork products or shellfish and that meat and dairy should not be combined. For instance, a hamburger
would be okay but a cheeseburger would not. Then we also have Mormonism. Patients who are
Mormon may abstain from alcohol, tobacco, and caffeine products.
And then patients who are Catholics, they may avoid meat on Fridays during the period of Lent.
So again, if you were in that time period, you would just want to ask your patient about their
dietary needs for their religious preferences. Lastly, we're going to talk about complementary
and alternative medicine. This is sometimes called CAM, C-A-M.
You can see here on card 29, we have a very nice list here in a table form of different types of
therapies and possible contraindications. Now, why do we call it complementary
and alternative? So complementary means that it is going along with more traditional forms of
medicine, and then alternative may mean that it's being used in the place of.
So it's very important to assess for a patient's use of CAM during their initial intake assessment.
Now, I'm not going to go into all of these. You can refer to the card for more detail.
But here are some important contraindications to understand.
A patient with acupuncture-- if that's the kind of practice that they're interested in, it may
be contraindicated if they have a bloodborne pathogen, just because there is the potential
with pricking the skin and getting blood out. That could be a possible contraindication.
Massage. Massage is a great use of CAM for many patients. However, a patient with a
deep-vein thrombosis should not receive a massage, as this could dislodge the clot.
And then, also, a patient with psychosis. This is something as well that we should be thinking of.
Another one we have here is hypnosis and meditation. These can be great tools for patients.
However, again, psychosis, either current or previous, may be contraindications for a patient.
Some other ones that we have are herbal supplements,
hypnosis and meditation, chiropractic adjustments. We have a whole list here. It is really important
to understand where your patient is coming from and what might be contraindicated for them.
Herbal supplements, for instance. You really need to know exactly
what they're taking and how much because there are the potential for interactions.
Definitely see our pharmacology flashcards and videos for more information on that.
Okay, so that is it for cultural considerations and complementary and alternative medicine.
I hope you liked that. If you did, please be sure to like the video. You can always leave
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