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Cultural and Diversity

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LETS BE LEFTIES

TINA MORTON
CHAMBERLIN COLLEGE OF NURSING
NOVEMBER 2, 2014

It’s 8 am Monday morning and I have just clocked in. I walk into my office to start my day, as I sit down at my desk and turn on my computer I notice that I have received an email from the Human Resources Department that states “Lets be Lefties for a Day” the memo followed by saying that there have been many complaints of ethnocentrism amongst employees and management so they have decided to implement a project for the day so that we can try to recognize why the staff was feeling this way. The first challenge was to have us take a sock and put a Ping-Pong ball in our fist and not to use that hand for the afternoon, the second task was to get out on the floor and experience what our staff did on a daily basis and the third task was to have a meeting with the other departments to see what their outcome was.
Ok so here it goes I have my ping pong ball and my sock ready to go, I have placed the items on my right hand as I am right hand dominant and this is forcing me to have to use My left hand for all tasks, well let’s just say that my first trip to the bathroom was eventful, As I went about my daily tasks I had a difficult time typing, answering the phone and eating. As I was going along with this challenge I decided not only to challenge my staff but some of the physician’s and ancillary staff that we have in the facility such as caseworkers and housekeeping, To go home and to report back to me on the challenges that they faced during this experiment. Having taken on this experiment it has made me realize that we all do things different and as a society we need to understand this and respect people for there differences.
So once I sat and thought about my experiences using mostly my left hand I went and started walking around the unit to observe the culture of the employees, visitors and physicians and ancillary staff. It was quite interesting in the small observations that I noticed mostly between the doctors and patients, most common was that when the patient had a specific request that entailed something that the nurse or physician was not comfortable with such as someone not receiving blood because of a religious view and that the doctor deems is necessary and is unable to convince the patient to change their mind. He walked away being quite judgmental because the patient had a particular belief and asked the nursing staff to try to persuade the patient into receiving blood instead of respecting their choice. Also, when we have a patient from another culture who wont eat anything thing from the hospital menu only what their family brings them and none of the items are appropriate for the type of diet that is ordered for the patient, do we refuse to let them eat it or do we let them and manage the consequences of the choices that they have made?
It is now about three in the afternoon and our human resource director has called us to a meeting to discuss our events of the day. We begin our meeting and the first topic that was brought up was the challenge that we all took part in and how did it help us to understand the differences that we all face everyday dealing with such a diverse population. I was the first to speak and I brought up the patient that had refused the blood transfusion as I felt that it was an issue that we didn’t understand very well, the manager from the second floor stated that just the other day they had a patient that was in the same situation and what they did was call in an advisor that was educated on this particular culture and was able to explain the reasons to the nurses and physicians. We all suggested that the advisor should have an in-service for the doctors and staff so that we could better understand the reasons why they refuse. We also spoke with someone from the dietary office to see if we could provide a more diverse menu for our patients since we have such a diverse patient population
Now that the end of the day has arrived I am looking back on my experiences from the sock and ball experiment to making rounds on the unit and the meeting with human resources.
All of Their activities have taught me that I need to be more aware of the choices that are made on a daily basis and we as a unit have to be more accepting to the diverse cultures that we encounter because as our society continues grow and becomes more diverse we must continue to understand the different cultures that surround us.

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