[Mediation of transcultural nursing care in clinical context: a tightrope walk].

Our wish for suggestions for a line of action regarding our contact with migrants in the clinical context has led us to an increased acceptance of "Transcultural Nursing" by Madeleine Leininger. However, an uncritical adoption of this theory without theoretical and historical background information produces in practice a stereotyped image of migrants, and a cultural rating of social and individual aspects instead of mutual understanding. Hence, from the present-day perspective, Leininger's model is not suitable to establish transcultural nursing care in practice. A theory not encouraging the analysis of socio-cultural backgrounds of one's own but the sight "from without" of the so-called alien--a theory that does not make interaction its main object but culture, cannot serve as a basis for transcultural nursing care. Up-to-date transcultural nursing care does not need the introduction of a specific nursing concept for migrants but an extension of nursing by a socio-cultural and migration-specific dimension. However, nursing care does not seem to accept this challenge, what with it being far easier to add the "Leininger Culture Care Theory" to the existing curricula as an additional model. Thus nursing loses the opportunity of grappling with the adoption of certain theories and models of other disciplines. Even though Leininger is herself a nurse, she has developed her model in her capacity as a cultural anthropologist using the background of anthropological theories. But, the supplying of transcultural nursing care demands also from cultural anthropologists an analysis of the concrete context of nursing care and its approaches. Only by bearing this in mind, cultural anthropology can counter effectively the danger of being marginalized as a fringe discipline, and of being reduced to the level of providing cooking recipes.