Cultural competence development: The importance of incorporating culturally responsive simulation in nurse education

The continued reports of declining standards of care for culturally diverse patients, highlights the urgent need for nurse educators to critically examine how cultural competence development is facilitated in everyday teaching. Nurses frequently report experiencing difficulties when adapting caring practice to culturally diverse groups. Subsequently, there needs to be a rooting of continuous cultural competence development threaded throughout undergraduate curricula. Simulation pedagogy can be used as a vehicle for nurturing cultural competence, but this requires a review of how culturally responsive simulation is structured and designed. This paper focuses on culturally responsive simulation as a means of improving the preparation of nurses for working in a broadening culturally diverse healthcare context by outlining fundamental considerations when integrating cultural competence development in everyday simulation.