Responding to Diversity Health, Medicine, Nursing Essay (Essay Sample)

CAN 157: Responding to Diversity
Assessment Task 2: Reflective Essay
Name:
Student ID Number:
Date of Submission:
Introduction
Australia is a diverse country with people of different social-cultural backgrounds. Provision of culturally unsafe services has a negative impact on the outcome of people (Curtis et al 2019; Laverty, McDermott, and Calma 2017). This paper presents a critical reflection and analysis of the concept that, ‘biased treatment matters in health care’. The first part of this reflection covers my own cultural location through the framework of intersectionality while the second part contains a reflection on how these cultural locations might affect my delivery of culturally safe services. The last two parts focuses on culturally safe health care practices that I will undertake to prevent biased treatment of patients at the individual level while the last part outlines how I can advocate for the non-acceptance of biased treatment at a population level.
Intersectionality and My Cultural Locations
Intersectionality refers to the various cultural locations within a person and how they interact and intersect depending on the context (Nnawulezi Case and Settles 2020; Van-Herk Smith and Andrew 2011). My racial background is Indian and my ethnicity within the Indian culture is Ezhawa. Being an Indian in Australia makes me belong to a minority group, who are affected by systemic discrimination from the largely-based westernised culture (Dunn Pelleri and Maeder-Han 2011; Hugo 2013). I practice Hinduism and consider religion to be an important part of my life. I was raised in a conservative family with conservative values that reflect traditional gender roles, dressing codes, and importance of kinship. I identify with the male gender, which is the gender that is less disadvantaged in terms of social circumstances and economic opportunities (Hazel and Kleyman 2019; Klasen 2018). My sexual orientation is straight, which means that I get the advantages of heteronormativity as opposed to the discriminated homosexuality (Krieger 2014). I value education; am a university student studying nursing. I am from a medium social-economic background, this means that I can afford essential services but still be aware of the impact of costs on the choices and lives of people. I am diverse and complex with cultural and social locations that at times intersect in an almost contrasting manner.
Reflection on how my Cultural Location, Attitudes, Values, and Belief might affect the Assumptions and Practices when Caring for Patients