Benefits of Nurse–Client Cultural, Essay Example

There are definitely challenges when dealing with a culture that is different from your own, and I experienced this first hand when caring for a patient who was from India. The patient was being treated for a persistent bacterial infection and was leery of the medicines prescribed to her. She said that, in India, they relied heavily on herbal remedies for preventing and curing illnesses, though they do still use secular medicines. They believe in a holistic approach to healing by dealing with the root causes, which are sometimes not physical. She was not of the most affluent class of the people in India, but she was aware that we had doctors from India who practice medicine here.

I agreed with her belief that healing definitely has a body, mind and spirit connection, but I also stressed the importance of taking her medicine as prescribed. I then asked one of the doctor’s from India to come in and meet her, who also assured her that she is being well taken care of and that it was best to take her medicine. Additionally, I asked her doctor if she could also take some of her herbal remedies, because she said that she preferred using them in conjunction with her prescribed medicine, and he said that would be fine.

The cultural and religious congruence between me, the nurse, and the patient came in when I acknowledged her beliefs and found a way to ease her mind by letting her speak with a doctor with her same religion and background and giving consideration to her concern for taking her herbal remedies. She became very comfortable with me after this encounter.