Cultural training for nurses
7 of the 10 fastest-growing jobs are in health care, but as demographics change, doctors and nurses will need new cultural skills to go along with their medical training. Alyssa Wagner has the story.
Public health nurse Vickie Porter in Shreveport, Louisiana. (Mario Villafuerte/Getty Images)
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TEXT OF STORY
Kai Ryssdal: If you really want to know what's going on with the economy, you're going to have to wait 'til Friday. That's when we're going to get the May unemployment report. That should give us some sense of what we're in for.
But slowdown or not, at least one part of the economy is snapping up new employees. The government says 7 out of the 10 fastest-growing jobs are in health care. The need for registered nurses is expected to grow 23 percent over the next 8 years, which is nothing but good news for Youth Radio's Alyssa Wagner.
Alyssa Wagner: I tell anyone who will listen that I want to be a nurse. When people find out that I've been majoring in Chicano/Latino studies, I get some pretty funny looks, but cultural competency is one of the new buzzwords in medicine. Take the University of California at Davis, where I go to school:
Woman: Good afternoon, Chicano and Chicana Studies. This is Leti.
This is the Chicano Studies department. It's on the other side of campus from the medical school, but Professor Adela de la Torre is bridging the gap by planning a new school of public health that incorporates cultural competency.
Adela de la Torre: It means recognizing that when you enter into a patient encounter that you are not the expert in every domain, that there is an opportunity to learn. If you understand the cultural background, the lifestyle of your patient, you can better treat your patient.
Dorcas Walton is a chief nurse executive at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Oakland, California.
Dorcas Walton: We can have as many as 40-some languages spoken on one of our floors. It brings an international house here to me all the time.
Whether it's Greek, Arabic or Cantonese, her staff has to be adept at things as complex as medical translation and as simple as knowing when to use eye contact.
Walton: One culture you're allowed to look the person in the eye and another culture says no, that's disrespectful. We have to teach our staff how to demonstrate caring for the variety of patients they're taking care of.
The latest census data shows 39 percent of Californians speak another language besides English at home. It's part of a larger trend nationwide.
Professor Yvette Flores, who introduced cultural competency to me in her psychology class, describes her "a-ha" moment. It came when she was an undergrad doing mental health work with migrant Mexican families.
Yvette Flores: And it seemed ludicrous to me that I was hired as a Mexican family expert when I was 18 years old and I was not Mexican and I had one course in psychology. That definitely shaped not only the kind of psychologist I became but also the courses that I teach, courses like mental health, psychological perspectives on the family and of course on Chicano psychology. I also teach humanities in medicine.
Humanities in medicine? Sounds strange, but Flores argues that's where it's all headed -- and I hope she's right as I get ready to graduate and use my BA in Chicano Studies to transition into a nursing career.
In Davis, California, I'm Alyssa Wagner for Marketplace.
Ryssdal: Alyssa's story was produced for us by Youth Radio.
Comments
Comment | Refresh
From MD, 06/25/2008
Dear Kai Rysdall,
Your story about cultural training for nurses on June 4,2008 was appreciated.However,the "teaser" that stated:..."multilingualism across the bedpan" reinforces an outdated and demeaning image of nurses and omits the lifesaving interventions that nurses perform with much greater frequency.
I do enjoy your show. If I can be of any assistance in helping you to portray an accurate image of nurses,especially men, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Bernard Vincent Keenan RN, MSN
Clinical Instructor
The Johns Hopkins University
School of Nursing
06/05/2008
I totally am in favor of learning other Languages.
But as we are in a fast paced environment where we all are busy we need the opportunity to learn in a very simple, effective, cost efficient
and convenient way.
For ex: I myself, an American by birth, found it very difficult whilst growing
up to learn my native language, which is Arabic. I got to learn and also join the workforce of a company with the most advanced Technology in teaching the Arabic Language online, via live classrooms through voice over IP, and available 24/7, this is convineint for busy people like me, and I wish that we had such in all languages with the same technology. Check it out at www.arabicollege.com.
Russia
From Hailey, ID, 06/04/2008
This is such an important topic, and way of training and looking at the patient/professional relationship. There MUST be trust and a feeling of connectiion between the two, and respect of one's culture and customs is so important.
I hope those of you connected with this article will take the time to go to Oprah's site, click on her 'Soul Series', and listen to the 4-part interview with Jill Bolte Taylor. She teaches first yr. med. students, and experienced her own stroke, which changed the way she looks at everything. The second part of the series talks about what she experienced as a helpless patient, and what she now hopes to teach others from her experience.
Thanks for this program.
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