Reflections on a nursing curriculum: Lessons learnt

The skills, behaviours and attitudes of registered nurses can impact health outcomes of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. How best to support learning opportunities in the area of Indigenous Australian cultural competence is underdeveloped in the discipline of nursing. This chapter will focus on a qualitative doctoral project aimed at unearthing the voices of undergraduate nurses learning Indigenous Australian cultural competence. Listening to the experience of nursing students has revealed a model of student learning which provides a better understanding of the lived experience of cultural competence. This model assists nursing academic staff to tailor and improve Indigenous Australian cultural competency within undergraduate nurse education. The chapter will then describe the experiences of embedding preliminary research findings into a Bachelor of Nursing curriculum review. It will provide details on the process of curriculum design, academic reflections and community consultation that will be useful to curriculum designers, academics and nursing teachers who are seeking ways of embedding cultural competence as pedagogy in nursing curriculums.