NuWest provided this article.

Cultural competency, as defined by the CDC, is the capability of understanding and serving people across cross-cultural situations. Building a healthcare workforce that reflects the needs and beliefs of its patients is a cornerstone of patient-centric healthcare.

In our experience working with close-knit cultures in Guam, Saipan, and American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) tribes and organizations, the benefits of understanding the unique cultures, concerns, and languages of patients are truly remarkable.

For clinical travel staff, understanding various cultural norms is also a great way to get a leg up in competitive job opportunities. For example, in our work with Seattle-area tribes, patients and administrative staff are pleased that NuWest Group has an interview and onboarding process that “blinds” applicant profiles to avoid bias while helping identify applicants with experience working with American Indian and Alaskan Native (AI/AN) groups.

Honing our cultural competency clinical skill set doesn’t mean you need to commit extensive time to learning languages or delving into anthropologic studies. But, we’ve found there are certain resources that can be incredibly useful in this area.

CEUs with a Cultural Competency Focus

Many Travel Healthcare agencies will reimburse the cost of CEUs for active travelers, so be sure to ask your recruiters if this is part of their compensation plan. At NuWest, it is one of our many perks and benefits. But whether you foot the entire bill and can get reimbursed, several programs can help develop your cultural competency. Here are just a few:

Nurse.com CE: Their cultural competency section is one of the most robust we’ve seen, with specific course offerings by culture, religion, race, gender, and sexual orientation.
CEU Academy: Here, you can take 1-hour educational, and cultural courses for $3.50/ course.
Think Culture Health: They offer free educational courses broken down by care focus areas.
EDX Learning: Check out the free course on unconscious bias created by Stanford’s online program.
EmblemHealth Training Guide: You’ll find a TLDR pdf with tips, communication strategies, and information on how to serve minority patient populations.
Quantum Units Education: They offer 6-course options covering a variety of treatments and interventions based on data from diverse communities.

Expanding Your Language Skills

A great way to understand and communicate with various cultures as a traveling nurse is to learn multiple languages. If you are interested in expanding your language skills, there are a plethora of medical terminology language resources for healthcare professionals (including American Sign Language (ASL) learning). If you aren’t sure where to start, you can choose whatever language is most abundant in your region or city of work. In certain parishes of Louisiana, that might be French. Of course, Spanish is the second most common language in the U.S. To help you decide, below are the top 5 most common languages in the U.S. broken down by percentage of the population.

English – 245 million (78.5%)
Spanish – 41.3 million (13.2%)
Chinese (all varieties) – 3.40 million (1.1%)
Tagalog (including Filipino) – 1.72 million (0.5%)
Vietnamese – 1.52 million (0.5%)

Whatever language(s) you choose to learn, luckily, in today’s world, learning language has never been easier. Tools like Google Translate* and MediBabble* can help in a pinch but aren’t ideal long-term and may even be restricted* from use at your place of work. Some other top language learning options include:

Babbel: Learn everything you need via real-world conversations, from vocabulary words to culture, in as little as 10 minutes a day.

Duolingo: Free and paid plans of gamified learning through quick, bite-sized lessons. You can earn points and unlock new levels while gaining real-world communication skills, including options such as a Spanish medical lesson.

HelloTalk: Uses direct connections to peers to help users learn a language for free by chatting with native speakers around the world.

Rosetta Stone: Explore free and paid plans from $48 for 3 months or $200 for lifetime use on some language courses.

Disclosure: Some hospitals have policies against using apps like Google Translate and MediBabble to avoid any miscommunications in care due to their translations (they’re good, but not perfect!). Beware and ask before using. And never rely on a computer translation tool when communicating important medical information.

Our job board is a great place to search for your next travel nurse assignment. We have you covered with our housing page if housing is an issue. You can search for what you are looking for.