Purnell Model of Cultural Competence Essay

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Purnell Model of Cultural Competence

We live in a multi-cultural society; therefore, cultural competence is an intricate skill that healthcare professional ought to have. This is a constant analysis of our knowledge of the other members of society’s culture and advancing knowledge. The inability to operate in a multi-cultural professional setting is usually due to the lack of personal knowledge, thus leading to a lack of awareness. The “Purnell Model of Cultural Competence” recognizes a way of integrating transcultural proficiency in nursing as a profession.

Cultural competence is achieved when an individual makes a deliberate attempt to understand the cultures of the people they interact with daily. Nurses need to provide culturally competent patient care that enhances the general well-being of the patients and the quality of their lives. Cultural awareness begins from the nursing professional’s self-awareness, recognizing the differences with the different cultures of the patients and other stakeholders in the healthcare sector, and responding to the differences appropriately.

Therefore, acculturation should be a constant practice for all healthcare professional (Purnell, 2012). This paper is a description of an interview I had with my colleague A. Y. who is a woman of colour. A. Y.’s father is African American, while her mother is Asian, and she does her best to learn about both her parents’ cultures.

Purnell Model of Cultural Competence Interview

A.Y. is a 20-year-old woman, who identifies as African American, despite having interracial parents. Her mother, who is Asian, works as a professor at a state university, while her father is a renowned African American artist. She says that this makes her feel lucky as she is exposed to two very different cultures, that sometimes she feels they complement each other, providing her with an exciting personality.

Her mother, immigrated from China in her late teens, after getting a scholarship to study in the United States. This gives A. Y. a first hand and richer experience of the Asian culture that she complements by reading much historical literature about her Asian roots (Purnell, 2012). She reports that exposure to this culture encourages her to be disciplined, and the positive stereotype of Asian intelligence encourages her to keep her passion for education (Purnell, 2012).

A. Y. father, on the other hand, being an African American artist, influences her to be very creative something that helps her forge personal relationships with various people first. Given this cultural background, A. Y. feels as though she had a rich acculturation process throughout her life, which makes it easier for her to understand other people’s cultures.

A. Y. reported that her primary language of communication is English, given that she has lived in the United States throughout her life. However, she confesses that she tends to use the African American dialect while communicating with her African American friends and family. She claims that this enables her to keep in touch with her African American roots.

However, she does not feel the obligation to learn Chinese, claiming that the language is quite challenging to learn, and she does not find it interesting. However, his mother uses a little bit of the language, giving her a foundation if she chooses to learn it. She adds that the most noticeable effect of communicating in Chinese is that it encourages etiquette. A. Y. claims to have learnt gender roles primarily from her mother.

She claims that even though she is progressive and is an ardent supporter of feminism, she claims that gender roles play an intricate role in creating a healthy society. Therefore, A. Y. is encouraging by her mother to be in touch with her nurturing instinct, a valuable nursing profession. She values nurturing due to leaning from her mother’s initiative to bring her up despite having a competitive and demanding career.

A. Y. claims that dues to her deliberate effort to be culturally competent, she does not face many cultural issues at work. She claims that cultural competence gives her a sense of belonging in the multi-cultural professional setting (Purnell, 2012). She adds that there are multiple culturally related healthcare issues can be reduced by encouraging the nurses to have an open mind and be willing to learn and respond to various people’s cultures.

Cultural Competence & Language Barrier

She pointed out that one of the most frequent issues is a language barrier that presents an official medical translator’s need. Given that A. Y. is biracial, she takes notice of the complementing combination of her parents’ cultural and biological variations. She claims to have noticed her urge to engage in high-risk behaviours, such as drug abuse but claims that she does not correlate with her cultural background but her age.

This could also be due to the general cultural context, where such behaviour is encouraged and incentivized with attention during the social media era. She points out that risky behaviours compromise the patient’s general health and consequently, the quality of life.

During my interview with A. Y., she reported that her cultural background has a significant influence on her diet and nutrition in general. She points out that she learned from her mother the importance of having a healthy diet, which is highly encouraged in Asian culture. However, given that she lives and works in Western civilization, she points out that her nutrition is highly compromised due to the societies’ lack of interest in incentivizing proper nutrition.

She points out that nutrition directly affects an individual’s health and, thus, society’s quality of life in general. A. Y. has a deep sense of gratitude towards birth control due to its impact on society by empowering women. Birth control grants power over childbearing, which enable them to pursue other interests in life. She points out that she is glad that this technology is available to many women worldwide and is expected to continue helping in the quest for women empowerment. She also notes that her society has little value for death rituals which gives the members of the society less chance to prepare for death.

A.Y. also pointed out that she identifies as agnostic and areligious, but adds that her mother instilled in her the desire to be spiritual. She points out that this enables her to be more self-aware, thus helping her be more culturally competent. She points out that spirituality enables her to understand various philosophical concepts, such as the meaning of life and the need for personal strength.

A. Y. also points out that in her culture healthcare is a priority as both preventative and curative practices healthcare practices, especially for matters concerning physical health. In her cultural context, organ donation and transplantation are acceptable, enhancing healthcare development and innovation (Purnell, 2012).

However, she notes that both in the Asian and African American cultural backgrounds have little emphasis on the importance of mental health. Finally, she added that in her cultural context, healthcare probationers are not esteemed and are under-compensated. According to her, healthcare professionals take science as the primary basis of knowledge and have little value for a magic-religious and traditional form of medicine with no scientific backing.