Abstract

Lori A. Escallier*, Judith T. Fullerton and Barbara Ann M. Messina

The nursing profession has acknowledged its responsibility to prepare all practitioners to provide culturally respectful care to diverse patient populations. A culturally competent academic and clinical teaching milieu is a strategy for shaping clinical nursing expertise. It is a vital link between theory and practice. This article presents a replicable model of the process in which one U.S. University School of Nursing engaged to assess the cultural competence of the nursing curricula at both undergraduate and graduate levels, the cultural awareness of faculty and students, and the perceptions of clients about the degree of cultural sensitivity demonstrated by program graduates.