What is Cultural Essentialism? Michael works as a nurse in a pediatric medical-surgical unit. The unit often receives patients who are members of a large Amish community in the area.

Case Study: What is Cultural Essentialism? Michael works as a nurse in a pediatric medical-surgical unit. The unit often receives patients who are members of a large Amish community in the area. Many of the nurses express discomfort about caring for these patients and working with the families due to the difficulties in understanding their primary language, which is Pennsylvania Dutch. In addition, the unit has seen a high number of readmissions due to lack of treatment adherence post-discharge. Recently, one of Michael’s coworkers approached him and asked for advice. She is caring for a five-year-old who is being treated after a severe injury from a dog bite. She is stressed about trying to provide discharge teaching to the mother, whose primary language is Pennsylvania Dutch (a dialect of German) and who keeps telling the nurse that she cannot do the dressings as the nurse shows her. The nurse exclaims, “I just don’t understand! They have lived here for ages—why do none of them speak English?”

 

How is Michael’s coworker exhibiting cultural essentialism?

 

 
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