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Professional Practice & Cultural Safety

Updated: Feb 5



As a healthcare provider, I needed knowledge, skills, and attributes to implement person-centered care to people from all backgrounds. To fulfill regulatory requirements and ethical and professional standards of nursing, this foundational unit introduced cultural safety as a model underpinning my development and practice. Nursing practice required a sound understanding of the expectations of consumers, employers, the profession, and the wider community. An understanding of the impact of our own cultures and those of professions and systems was essential to provide nursing care that is free of racism, stigma, and other forms of discrimination across all practice settings. This unit introduced the social determinants of health which underpinned cultural safety and its focus on societal responses to diversity and the impacts of these responses on health. The unit provided a basis for developing respect and compassion as well as professional standards.



 

Learning outcomes


  • Apply knowledge of the NMBA Standards of Practice (2016), NMBA Code of Conduct (2018), National Health Priority Areas, National Safety and Quality Health Service Standards, and Aged Care Quality Standards that underpin the nursing profession, and explain how they relate to the provision of culturally safe, person-centred care

  • Apply theoretical frameworks to develop a foundational capacity for personal cultural self-reflection, and acknowledge the relationship of self to professionalism, inter- and intra-professional practice, and the provision of inclusive, culturally safe, person-centred care

  • Analyse, reflect on, and explain how your personal social position, experience, and cultural identity influence the provision of culturally safe nursing care across primary, secondary, and tertiary health care contexts

  • Apply knowledge of historical, social, and political issues (social determinants of health) to explain the socio-political context of health care and the impact of these structures on human health and consumer experiences of health systems

  • Identify and analyse the dominant values, assumptions, and processes that shape health systems, care-delivery models, and nursing practice in Australia across primary, secondary, and tertiary healthcare contexts.


 

Projects


Project One


Apply your understanding of cultural safety and professional practice, learnt through self-directed activities, tutorials, and lectures weeks 1-4 inclusive.



 

Project Two


Individual Reflection.

I developed the skills and maintained the ongoing practice of critical reflection to cultivate self-awareness of my personal and professional cultures, the healthcare system's culture, and the social determinants of health, along with their impacts on my practice and healthcare outcomes. For this assessment, I submitted a reflective piece in response to the detailed instructions provided. This reflective task was designed to support my analysis and reflection on my reactions to events, readings, and/or class discussions, allowing me to learn from them. The reflective task helped me think and examine my culture (my worldview: identity, thoughts, beliefs, values, attitudes, and assumptions, and my lifeworld: status, social experience) in relation to cultural safety, person-centered care, and the Registered Nurse Standards for Practice (NMBA 2016), Code of Ethics (ICN 2012), and Code of Conduct (NMBA 2018). The activities facilitated reflection on the cultures of services and systems and on matters of intersectional disadvantage, racism, and power.



 

Project Three


Analysis.

Drawing on relevant items from the required weekly reading program for this unit, the resources detailed below in the questions, and further research, I undertook an analysis of the Australian Health Care System following the detailed steps below. The questions considered the principles of person-centered care, cultural safety, and professional codes relevant to regulatory requirements of the nursing profession. The assignment included an analysis of the impact of socio-political issues on health and of consumers' experience of health services by considering the impact of dominant values, assumptions, and processes shaping healthcare in Australia.




 

Overall Grading

Mark: 76

Grade: 6

Grade Description: Distinction


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