Cultural Norms and Cultural Sensitivity

00:05 Cultural norms.

00:07 So in general, probably in every country, people, the norm is what most of the people in that environment do.

00:16 But in America, one of the things, again, that we pride ourselves on is that we have so many different cultures within our whole American system within our nation.

00:26 And so the belief or the tradition has been to expect people to change or forget their culture and adopt all of the customs and practices and beliefs of people who were born in this country.

00:38 Well, guess what, we invite people here.

00:41 We need to be able to embrace their culture and their cultural differences and not try to force people to assimilate or a culture rate.

00:50 People can exist here and still be American, but still practice their own traditions is the same or comparable to.

00:57 We all have different religious affiliations.

01:00 And we don't want to force people into doing what we do in our religion.

01:05 We want to allow people to practice their own religion.

01:09 Again, the bottom line is if it's not causing harm to someone else, allow people to exist in peace.

01:17 So those cultural norms even moving beyond what I just talked about in terms of race and ethnicity.

01:24 The example I gave of the cultural norms within organizations, most of which have several different departments is shared sanctioned and integrated systems of beliefs and practices.

01:36 And all of those characterize a cultural group.

01:39 So, if I'm going to be specific, again, as a nurse, I want to use an example of nursing again.

01:46 We have so many different levels within nursing.

01:49 I'm gonna use the advanced practice nurse.

01:51 So we have nurse practitioner, we have CRNA, we have family nurse practitioner, we have adult acute care, adult Jarrow acute care, adult Jarrow primary care, We have psych mental health NPs.

02:05 And my point is, within each one of those different designations within the APR in system or culture, there are subcultures.

02:14 So we all have shared language, knowledge, practices, but we also have some that are unique to each one of those different roles within the APR in row.

02:26 Then cultural sensitivity.

02:28 So those terms don't need to go away just because I promote cultural intelligence a lot.

02:34 The differences if I'm not sensitive to other cultures, can I become culturally intelligent? And I need more than one thing, that's the other thing I want to point out.

02:44 I've said that cultural competence is one of the things that I do kind of want to not necessarily get rid of, but reprioritize in terms of when we talk about language, with the expectations of people in terms of, how we are able to embrace culture? So if we don't have sensitivity and humility, then it will probably be close to impossible to develop cultural intelligence.

03:10 Because remember, interest is the key to that.

03:13 So when I'm sensitive, I'm aware and I acknowledge that there are cultural differences, and also similarities.

03:20 And the issue is that oftentimes, we want to focus on the things that are similar, because that's where we're comfortable.

03:27 And when people do things that are different, oftentimes, we go back to the space of judging, stereotyping, labeling, rather than embracing that it's okay to be different.

03:38 And it's okay to allow people to practice some of those cultural traditions, again, as long as they're not harmful.

03:45 And when I say that, I mean, in the workspace, I mean, in the healthcare system.

03:49 So someone's in the hospital, and there's some type of ritual that needs to happen in the space of healing and health care.

03:57 If it's not causing harm, we should allow that to happen.

04:01 That word allow, again, because there are rules, policies, procedures and standards that govern health systems, and that govern organizations.

04:10 So if it doesn't alter or change something in a negative way, we should be open to embracing that.

04:16 And that's part of that sensitivity, and part of that intelligence.

04:20 If that helps people thrive in a situation, we should be willing to embrace that