SELF-ENHANCEMENT ACTIVITY

Direction: Use the space that follows to evaluate your relationship to these five components of
cultural competence.

In particular, ask yourself: What are my strengths?

 Example (cultural knowledge): My frequent interactions with Chinese patients have

helped me understand the culture’s archetypical concept of health
 In which of these areas have I been challenged? Example (self-awareness): I
recognize that in the past I’ve judged patients who didn’t consistently follow my care
instructions.
 Are there opportunities for growth? Example (cultural skills): I’d like to work on my
active listening skills

Growth
Strength Challenges
Opportunities
Open Attitude I see myself as an I find myself having a Learning to
open person who can difficult time adjusting constantly think of
accept criticism to sudden changes of new ways of solving
problems.
easily. plan.
Self-Awareness I have kept track on I still have more Discovering more of
what strategies I can things to discover myself.
work with in order to about myself.
reach a common
goal.
Awareness of Being empathetic is Too much empathy Improving my focus
Others my best suit. I picture makes me vulnerable on the current
myself in the to overthinking about situation, instead of
worrying what others
standpoint of my what others perceive
think.
clients to have a me as.
better understanding
of their experience.
Cultural Knowledge I expose myself As Asian continent is Filling the gaps of
through different filled with diverse knowledge about
cultures of clients as I cultures, I have yet to culture.
interact with variety learn the culture of
of media. small countries that
are underrepresented
by the media.
Cultural Skills With given time, I am Occasionally, I Get a better
able to develop and develop prejudices understanding of a
adapt to different due to lack of client’s culture and
eliminated any
styles of knowledge which
prejudice.
 communication and impedes my skills to
interaction. connect with clients
of diverse cultural
background.

Now that you have examined your strengths, challenges, and growth opportunities, what
steps do you commit to taking in order to develop your culturally competent care?

In pursuing a greater culturally competent care, I, as an aspiring nurse, must work on my

capacity to have a better understanding of another’s culture and how I could approach it to
improve health care delivery. First and foremost, I could train my mind to be proactive and
constantly improvise my plans to improve my open attitude. Second, to improve my self-
awareness, my plan is to expose myself to different types of activities such as playing other
sports or creating art to discover more of myself. Same with being proactive, I can do exercises
such as meditation to improve my focus and thwart unnecessary thoughts of others. As per
cultural knowledge, watching documentaries and reading literatures about cultures of different
countries will aid in filling the gaps of my knowledge on foreign cultures. Finally, with greater
knowledge I can then achieve a better perspective of a client’s culture and destroy any stigma
that I may encounter. Ultimately, all these can be achieved only through diligence to follow
through on these goals.