Culture: United States and Congruent Holistic Care Essay

Submitted By liutdlrs
Words: 299
Pages: 2

Leininger developed the Theory of Culture Care: Diversity and Universality with the goal to provide culturally congruent holistic care (Sitzman, 2011). One of my preferred aspects of the nursing career is to be able to care for people. Care does not only mean to carry Doctors orders, or complete all the tests and procedures needed for a patient. Care is to maintain an active open communication with our patients, to understand their feelings, to try our best to make them feel better, even when the drugs and other procedures do not alleviate the pain, or the discomfort. But how can we do that? Well, I believe that sometimes with only a comfort word, with a smile, or showing respect to others, we can make a patient to feel a lot better.

Coming from a Caribbean Island, I have my own cultural believes regarding health care. For us, Hispanics, it is very normal to take medical decisions for our parents, and they agree with them. Lately, the United States population is more diverse every day. As a nurse, I have had the opportunity to work for a community with very diverse population, including mostly White Americans, African Americans, Hindus, and Hispanics.
When I started working, it was very hard to adjust myself to the cultural characteristics of my new patients. Once I had a patient who practiced the Islam, and suffered of diabetics Mellitus, I had to teach him about the proper diet to control the blood sugar levels. I had to do a lot of research to appropriately teach