Making anthropology clinically relevant to nursing care.

Transcultural nursing is generally seen as the interface between anthropology and nursing. A prime objective of transcultural nursing has been the translation of concepts from anthropology and nursing into the nursing process to guide a culturally informed clinical practice. To date, there has been a general inability of transcultural nursing to operationalize the concept of culture to develop culturally competent clinicians; that is, nurses who are capable of knowing, utilizing, and appreciating the effects of culture in the resolution of an individual, group, community, and/or family problem. A model of transcultural nursing is described, for incorporating the concept of culture into patient care. It includes the concepts of cultural brokerage, simultaneous dual ethnocentrism, multiple clinical realities, the patient as cultural informant, and cultural assessment of patient views of clinical reality. The problems of making anthropology and transcultural nursing clinically relevant through the transcultural nursing model are presented and methods are recommended for addressing such problems.