*Dr. Leininger is the founder of transcultural nursing.*Initiated this field of nursing in the mid-1950s.*Born in Sutton, Nebraska, lived on a farm with two brothers and sisters.*Attended Sutton High School, Scholastica College, the Catholic University of America in DC, and the University of Washington, Seattle

*Dr. Leininger was the first professional nurse with a graduate preparation to complete a PhD in anthropology.*She brought nursing and anthropology

together and coined the term transcultural nursing as an essential formal area of study and practice.*Her Culture Care Diversity & Universality

theory was one of the earliest nursing theories and it remains the only theory focused specifically on transcultural nursing with a culture care focus. Her theory is used worldwide.

*Dr. Leininger established the first Caring Research Conference in 1978. She developed the theory of Culture Care with the ethnonursing method.

*The ethnonursing method was the first nursing research method and has been used for decades.

*She conducted the first transcultural nursing field study in early 1960s as she lived alone with the Gadsup of Eastern Highlands of New Guinea.

*Dr. Leininger wrote the first books on transcultural nursing.

*She developed and launched the first undergraduate and graduate courses and programs in transcultural nursing beginning in the 1970s.

*Introduced the idea of studying emic generic (folk) and etic professional care differences and similarities to reduce the care gaps and conflict areas that can be non therapeutic to clients.

*Conceived and saw the need to establish the Transcultural Nursing Society as the official organization of the new discipline in 1974.

*Conceived and saw the need to establish the Transcultural Nursing Society as the official organization of the new discipline in 1974.

*The TCN society today is the major organization in this discipline with theory and research to advance transcultural nursing science.

*Dr. Leininger established and was the first editor of the Journal of Transcultural Nursing.

*Dr. Madeleine Leininger has received many outstanding awards and honors and has been nominated for the Nobel Prize for her significant and worldwide breakthrough encouraging health disciplines to study and practice transcultural health care.

*The Culture Care Diversity and Universality theory, according to Dr. Leininger, focuses on describing, explaining and predicting nursing similarities and differences focused primarily on human care and caring in human cultures.

*The Culture Care Diversity & Universality theory does not focus on medical symptoms, disease entities or treatments.

*It is instead focused on those methods of approach to care that means something to the people to whom the care is given.

*Developed in the mid-1950s and early 1960s.*Developed particularly to discover the

meanings and ways to give care to people who have different values and lifeways.*Designed to guide nurses to provide

nursing care that fits with those that are being cared for.*Culture Care theory not only focuses on

nurse-client interaction but the focus also includes care for families, groups, communities, cultures and institutions.

*The theory includes an enabler ( Dr.Leininger prefers it not be called a model), serves as a conceptual guide or cognitive map to guide nurses in the systematic study of all dimensions of the theory.

*This map or guide is called the Sunrise Enabler.

*Key elements of a method of application in Practice Methodology have been identified by Dr. Leininger and they are (1) goals of nursing which address practices,clients (2) cultural assessment ( using the Sunrise Enabler) and (3) nursing judgments, decisions and actions.

*Research findings are used to develop protocols for cultural-congruent care that blends with the particular cultural values, beliefs and lifeways of the client.

*Leininger criticizes the four nursing metaparadigm concepts of person, environment, health, and nursing.

*Furthermore, she defines these concepts in her theory

*Nursing: care has the greatest meaning which explains nursing

*Person: should refer to families, groups, and communities

*Health: not distinct to nursing as many disciplines use this term

*Environment: included events with meanings and interpretations given to them in particular physical, ecological, sociopolitical or cultural setting.

*Care always occurs in a cultural context

*Culture is viewed as framework people use to solve human problems

*Culture is “the lifeways of an individual or a group with reference to values, beliefs, norms, patterns, and practices” (Leininger, 1997, p. 38)

*Information on culture is essential for holistic assessment of an individual, family, or community

*The assessment process must be comprehensive, accurate, and systemic

*Individual’s, family’s, or community’s perspective of their culture is needed for an accurate assessment.

*Nurse approaches an individual, family, or community with the intent to gain understanding of the expressions, patterns of health, and care

*Nurse obtains knowledge about the dynamic cultural and social structural dimensions influencing health.

*Nurse invites an individual, family, or community to describe their own experience about health and caring

*Nurse documents the description of an individual’s, family’s, or community’s cultural and social structure that influence health patterns and concern

We live in a city that is rich in diversity. How, then, should we treat one another? We should value diversity. We have the capacity to perform a cultural self-assessment. We should be conscious of the dynamics inherent when cultures interact and we should exercise cultural awareness. Being culturally competent is essential to being an efficient nurse.