The Generalist Nursing Practice standard expects that the nurse must Organize the

interdisciplinary health care needs of diverse populations across the lifespan toward achieving
the goal of healthy individuals, families, groups and communities (FSU, 2015). Today all
health care professionals will be increasingly expected to provide health care to individuals who
are poor, socially marginalized or culturally different from the traditional mainstream of society.
The values, attitudes, cultures and life circumstances of these individuals and the communities in
which they reside must be taken into consideration when providing care. This outcome is
demonstrated with the incorporation of all health care team members to provide patient care
based on individualized needs. This is implemented with an individual patient, entire families or
specific groups within a community at all levels of the socio-economical scale, resulting in
achieving evidence based health promotion goals to the targeted persons or group. The
following papers are examples of how this outcome has been met. The Nursing 340 research and
reflective assignment Populations Threatened by Tuberculosis included not only research into
the health care needs of an often criticized and poorly understood patient demographic, but
required dissection of some of the fields newest evidence for the purpose of either confirming or
refuting my earliest training and forcing self-introspection into my own biases and
preconceptions in light of the evidence. The assignment resulted in an appreciation of my own,
and my professions attitudes and preconceptions toward a vulnerable population and how this
translates into accurately identifying, understanding and ultimately providing this demographic
with nursing care.
The Nursing 340 exercise of the community windshield survey as a method for
incorporating the cultural and life circumstances of a patient population into considerations that
direct their care plans by both individual practitioners and institutions was in keeping with the

Generalist Nursing Practice focus. Our windshield survey was completed to study our own
neighborhood where potential patient clients reside and the impact the locale has on resident
health. Though a subjective process by which we scrutinize our surroundings by viewing the
physical features and infrastructure of the living environment, the exercise created an
understanding of the physical expression of my own community as an index of patients shared
health risks, disease prevalence and impact, overall community wellness, infrastructure,
socioeconomic status and the collective resources available to serve the health needs of the
people in our vicinity.
Ferris State University. (2015). BSN program outcomes
[Nursing]. Retrieved from http://www.ferris.edu/htmls/colleges/alliedhe/Nursing/BSNprogram-outcomes.htm