Engaging Nursing Students in a Rural Native American Community to Facilitate Cultural Consciousness

ABSTRACT

Integrating cultural consciousness into nursing curricula is important for preparing a global nursing workforce. This article evaluated the impact of a teaching strategy designed to facilitate nursing students’ cultural consciousness beyond the classroom during a 1-week field experience within a rurally isolated Native American community. Cultural consciousness health care is a central element of health care delivery that integrates clinical knowledge, sensitivity, and cultural understanding. This study used an intrinsic single case study design bounded by 30 nursing students’ perceptions of their week-long immersion experience within a rurally isolated American Indian community. The reality of the situations they encountered did not match their expressed expectations nor their tacit assumptions. Evidence taken in situ from clinical reflections demonstrated most of the students wrestled with this mismatch, although they improved their clinical assessment, technical nursing, and intercultural communication skills. Evidence from end of course reflections demonstrated that two-thirds of the students integrated their preconceptions and their immersion experiences with cultural consciousness emerging in their reflections.