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Professional Activity Paper - Clinical Group 1

Over the course of two days, my community service at Tucson Meet Yourself provided

positive supplementation to my cultural competence in population health nursing. Through my

experience of giving my time, I was able to observe different cultures that reside in Tucson and

gain further understanding of how diverse groups of people behave and live. This opportunity to

serve allowed me to perform a self-assessment on my cultural bias. Stereotypes and prejudices

harm the ability for a nurse to give quality and culturally competent care. So, I sought out to

gather knowledge about the diverse cultures present on my volunteer days. One of the events that

led me to transition my mindset on different cultures was when I observed the Balkan Bluegrass

band play their music. From my own bias and experience, I assumed Balkans and Europeans

alike did not like American music and rather not participate in producing it. This group of people

proved me wrong by being enthusiastic about playing Bluegrass and encouraging other members

of the crowd to dance along. Technically I am classified as an ethnic minority, Hispanic, but it

does not mean I am culturally competent. Learning about other cultures is an important aspect of

population health nursing because it can provide patient-centered quality care. Creating a good

relationship between the patient and healthcare worker, can increase the chance of follow-up

care. Instead of being upset that I was wrong about a group of people, I enjoyed learning more

about their beautiful culture.

The work that was assigned to me was being a grounds worker. I was responsible for

keeping the streets clean and taking the trash out. My assigned partner and I made sure to sort the

trash from recycling and created a system to effectively keep the event clean. In the process,

multiple participants from the event approached us and thanked us for cleaning up. They

expressed their appreciation for our service. In combination with the cultural competency
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improvement and gratitude expressed, I enjoyed this experience and I would do it again. I would

recommend this to my peers and future student nurses to attend and service at this event. I was

able to grow my cultural awareness and gather more knowledge about diverse cultures, while

giving back to my local community.