Essay Example: Nurse's Cultural Background and Impact on Care

Generations can influence the nursing culture and the mode of care. The cultural background of nurses covers the four generations starting from the First World War. The oldest is known as veterans. The veterans consist of nurses who lived through the great wars (Andrews, Boyle & Collins, 2016). The world was going through a depression because of the wars, and migration was rampant as people were fleeing the affected countries. These made the veterans develop a sense of loyalty, discipline, value hard work, and teamwork. The government had come up with incentives to prevent brain drain, and that tended to encourage most nurses to continue working past their retirement age.

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The second group is the baby boomers who were born between 1946 to 1964. This group lived through a period of great prosperity with a lot of freedom. They were driven and a dedicated group as they tended to equate work with personal fulfillment (Zabel et al., 2016). They valued recognition through perks such as promotion, salary increments, reserved parking, or windowed office spaces. After the boomers, came the generation X, who were born between 1965 and 1980. According to Zabel et al. (2017), the baby boomers and generation X are not very different in their values. Both generations value the chance to make use of the abilities that they have gathered through experience. However, generation X tend to have a higher preference for the opportunity for advancement.

The last group consists of the millennials who were born from the 1980s to the mid-1990s. This group strives to maintain a balance between work and home. They grew up around the technology and therefore tended to rely on technology. They have a strong affinity for peer support and teamwork. They also lived in the era of information technology, which gave them the ability to synthesize large amounts of information quickly.

I belong to the millennial generation because of the following reasons. First, I was born after 1980, which is the first condition for being a millennial. Second, I am tech-savvy. I have good knowledge of operating digital devices such as smartphones, computers, iPads, and other media devices. I also do most of my communication through social media. Social media use is one of the primary hallmark traits of millennials (DeVanney, 2015). According to DeVanney (2015), the millennials' use of social media is natural and essential. We don't just use social media for socializing. We use it for work-related activities too. It is not uncommon to have official communications through social media sites such as WhatsApp, Facebook, or Twitter. This gives me a lot of flexibility.

At the moment, their conflict between people of my generation and the baby boomers. The baby boomers think the millennials are lazy and entitled while the millennials think the boomers are out of touch with reality. But despite the hostility between the two groups, there are a few lessons that we can learn from each other. Some of the life lessons that millennials can get from the boomers are discipline, obedience, and loyalty. The boomers grew up at a time of war, and a good number of them even served in the military. Despite growing up at a time of expanding freedom, they were taught to be loyal, obedient, and disciplined to themselves, their families, and their country (Kay, 2018).

On the other hand, boomers can learn to integrate technology into their lives. The millennials are the generation that grew up with online media. That has allowed them to develop a high level of know-how on how to make use of online media. Most of these have made life easier not just for the millennials but for other generations as well. That could especially help the nurses from the boomer generations to collect feedback from their patients.

References

Andrews, M. M., Boyle, J. S., & Collins, J. (2016). Transcultural concepts in nursing care. Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer.

DeVaney, S. A. (2015). Understanding the millennial generation. Journal of Financial Service Professionals, 69(6).

Kay, M. F. (2018, October 9). Money And Life Lessons Baby Boomers Can Learn From Millennials. Retrieved November 27, 2019, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkay/2018/10/09/money-and-life-lessons-baby-boomers-can-learn-from-millennials/#7e725110794c.

Zabel, K. L., Biermeier-Hanson, B. B., Baltes, B. B., Early, B. J., & Shepard, A. (2017). Generational differences in work ethic: Fact or fiction? Journal of business and psychology, 32(3), 301-315.