This course introduces the Registered Nurse to the models and principles that underpin and inform the ideas/theory called cultural safety. You will be encouraged to begin exploring the complexity and centrality of 'culture', which includes issues of ethnicity, social diversity, vulnerability and marginalisation specifically relating to health and health care.
You will explore the patient's/client's (their family/whanau and community) health/illness experience from a social perspective, in order to deepen your knowledge base in this area. You will also examine the diverse roles that nurses have or must take on when working with/caring for people who become the patients/clients/users of the health care system of New Zealand. Critical questions will be asked about how culturally safe nursing care is practiced because of its impact on both the experiences and health outcomes of patients/clients and their families/whanau and the wider community.
- define what culture means and why it is important in the delivery of nursing care.
- review the concepts of 'cultural safety' and 'cultural competency' and consider the application of this concept in the care patients/clients and their family/whanau/communities.
- critically explore the significance of 'cultural practices' related to health/illness and healthcare.
- consider the importance of the nurses' culturally generated understanding of health/illness and professional service delivery in this area.
- examine bicultural and multicultural understandings of health/illness and the healthcare experience.