Personal Statement

Name
Tutor
Subject
Date
Personal Statement
Strengths and Challenges
I believe that to become a successful nurse; one must have excellent communication skills. Nurses meet a wide range of persons, both sick and non-ailing, many of whom may go for medical consultations. It is therefore imperative to have the necessary communication skills, as it enables the nurse to know how to deliver the information, read how the message was received, and react depending on how the message was received. I believe that one of my personal strengths is my communication ability as I can talk to anyone about anything.
My strengths in communication abilities have grown massively because I am an outgoing person. The urge to develop my communication abilities as a student nurse came after I noticed some deaths were caused by preventable medical errors, which could have been avoided were there proper communication. As I thought of saving more lives, I realized it was domineering to work on my communication abilities. The ability to converse and connect with the patients, just as much as with other healthcare professionals, can assist in establishing good relationships, preventing errors, and proving care at higher levels. This not only increases the quality of health care services offered but also helps in saving lives. However much my communication abilities are superb, I have a weakness when it comes to communicating with a large group of people, say like a seminar or in a meeting. I believe that the weakness is a result of fear based on the knowledge that the people will be staring at me and gauging what I say, or probably not even interested in what I say but how I am dressed.

Moreover, such occasions might be used in making judgments and I fear the possibility of wrong decisions based on what I communicated.Cultural Humility in Practice
Humility is traditionally implied as a kind of humbleness or meekness, but it can also mean the willingness to precisely gauge oneself and one’s confines. As a nurse, humility may as well mean rather than becoming very self-effacing, humble, and meek, we must acknowledge the boundaries of our cultural viewpoints and work towards overcoming such viewpoints as we seek to provide a better caring system (Alsharif n.p). Nurses, of all the people, should be able to know the difference between academic knowledge of a given culture and relating to it. Practicing cultural humility, therefore, means maintaining a willingness to suspend one’s knowledge, or what we think we know, regarding an individual based on culture generalizations.
Nurses are amongst the group of people who need to practice high levels of cultural humility as they meet people of varied cultures. A nurse’s failure to practice cultural humility can lead to many medical problems, an aspect I once experienced (Alsharif n.p). There was a nurse in charge of an old-aged Latino woman who had just undergone surgery. As I was passing across the room, I noticed the moaning and commented that the patient appeared to be undergoing a great deal of post-operation pain. The nurse under care, however, quickly dismissed the observation and responded that Hispanic patients usually over-express the pain they feel. I tried convincing the nurse to try and find out, but all was in vain. This incidence clearly showed a nurse with no cultural humility. Even though I felt for the patient, I walked away but had my regrets because I should have involved another healthcare official at a high level, something I promised myself never to ignore again in another instance of such.
Work Cited
Alsharif, Naser Z. “Cultural humility and interprofessional education and practice: A winning combination.” American journal of pharmaceutical education 76.7 (2012): 120.