We often jump to conclusions based on our own cultural beliefs and customs. It is critical that we not only be culturally competent to the patients culture but do not push our own onto them in our assessments of the situations (Salman, Lee,Cooksey-James (2014). I had a case where a mother of an infant, who had heart defects repaired one month prior to the ED visit, came in to the hospital in critical condition. This infant coded in our ED but was resuscitated. The mother chose not to fly immediately with her child to the valley (3 hours away).

Instead, she went back out to the reservation to a ceremony by the medicine man for her infant and planned on going to the valley after the ceremony. Several members of my staff were deeply troubled by this. They could not comprehend the mother not flying with her infant. We met and debriefed about cultural awareness in order to help the nursing staff with their feelings about this situation.

We  explained to them that culturally the mother felt she could help her child more by attending the ceremony that being at the bedside at that moment. There were continued mixed feelings about this case after the debriefing but the staff did come away with a new awareness of the culture of the Navajo people.

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