Cultural Safety and the Nursing Profession

Ms Sammy Petric1, Associate Professor Bethne Hart1

1University of Notre Dame

 

Cultural safety has its challenges; it requires a shift in each person, in relationships and in nursing practice and education. Remote Area Nurses are in the unique position to promote cultural safety as the workforce that directly engages with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. A review of current literature exploring racism in nursing, decolonising nursing and cultural safety within the nursing profession will be presented. Critical reflections will be discussed within the remote nursing context as a process for Remote Area Nurses and organisations to review their cultural safety within their professional practice. This presentation promotes cultural safety partnerships with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people and communities. It also reminds us that a strong commitment towards cultural safety from managers of healthcare organisations must be in place for the nursing profession to shift its ways of thinking, doing and being


Biography:

Samantha is a Registered Nurse with over six years’ experience working within the domains of rural/remote nursing within Australia and metropolitan hospitals in Sydney. She has worked in four different Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health services and research settings. Samantha is a currently completing her Master of Philosophy (Nursing) degree and is the 2018 recipient of the Joan Hardy Scholarship for postgraduate nursing research. Samantha continues to undertake a decolonising approach to her professional and research practice including completion of Cultural Safety Training with CATSINaM.

samantha.petric1@my.nd.edu.au