Quality nursing care celebrates diversity

At the beginning of the 21st century, the familiar biomedical health care "culture" must accommodate not only persons from diverse cultures, but also diverse systems of care. For perhaps the first time in over a century, biomedicine must accommodate others rather than require them to assimilate into its "culture." This fundamental shift requires nurses to move quickly to develop cultural competency as individuals and to provide leadership for this system-wide change. Such competence is important when using complementary and alternative modalities. This article addresses America s experience with diversity and its legacy in today s health indicators; it explores cultural competency and its achievement at the individual and system levels; and it discusses the use of complementary and alternative treatments that are a part of this health care "revolution." Nurses are challenged to shape this reform as did the founder of modern nursing 150 years ago.