okay that’s nursing workforce that he’s
talking about so anyway sorry about the
intro slide I know some of you feel like
you’re back at school but I really thank
you for coming and talking with us today
as I share with you how I feel like that
we can lead the way in addressing
nursing workforce diversity so this is
me now as you can see but the question
is who was i before I was this clinical
nurse a commander in the United States
Navy and of course this awesome
professor well I was one of six children
I was raised in a two-parent household
with a stay-at-home mom and you know all
of that sounds really good
but what I can actually tell you is that
I’m a picture perfect example of why we
should seek a greater understanding of
the social determinants of health and
that’s not just for our patients but
it’s for a better understanding of the
what our professional students are
addressing and the barriers that they
have to achieving higher level education
so my family faced many struggles and my
father was a very successful business
owner of a women’s boutique in
Cincinnati Ohio but at the height of
racial tensions his store was bombed so
fearing for our safety we moved and
eventually ended up in Atlanta Georgia
this move changed our status so now our
family went from being very well-off to
living in a state of poverty the
struggles continued when my older sister
was diagnosed with cancer and because we
didn’t have health care it really put a
limitation on the type of treatment she
would receive there were also issues of
domestic violence and what I learned
later on is that these stressors are
really often related to poverty
and while we always have food and
shelter things like new clothes which is
what I account the fact that I have a
very serious compulsive disorder when it
comes to shopping but new clothes and
frivolous items just weren’t an option
so what I did was join the Navy I wanted
to be able to support myself and at this
time I was able to go to Community
College I moved to Durham after I
married and I was employed by Duke and
at the time Duke Hospital had a
wonderful program that allowed me to be
a full-time person I was working 20
hours I was being paid for 40 and then I
was also have my full undergraduate
nursing tuition paid for and the
a young neonatal nurse I care for the
tiniest most vulnerable patients and I
worked as an integral member of a very
complex health care team the preterm
infants were brought to us from all over
the state and region and they really had
their worried parents right behind them
the families that I touched were a rich
diversity of families that were parents
and caregivers who were young and old
rich and poor Asian black Hispanic it
was really truly a tapestry of diversity
that resembled the world that we live in
I love this professional role and I
still do when I get the opportunity to
work in the unit and I was empowered
each day to be the voice of those micro
humans who were entrusted into my care
as a clinical nurse I provided expert
care but I also hug saying cried prayed
rocked and I held those babies until
they would leave our unit for their
forever home and even now I remain in
touch with most families and I’m able to
watch most of those children
and grow and thrive and just like all
the other ICN nurses nurse practitioners
physicians and other health care
providers in the unit I really cared
about survival rates infant growth and
development safe transitions home and of
course parent infant bonding but the one
thing that was not like all the other
team members was that I was only one of
five women of color in an otherwise
white homogeneous unit that was home to
over 225 nurses when I was enrolled of
my undergraduate program at North
Carolina Central University because the
minority was the majority I really
didn’t notice that these differences
existed in this health care system but
it didn’t deter me from being an
integral member of the team but it did
inspire me to look for opportunities to
create a more diverse nursing workforce
in the future a workforce that looked
much more like the patients that we
cared for so let’s fast forward a decade
the completion of two graduate degrees
and I feel like I found a way so we look
at the role of nurses on both the
frontline as well as the backbone of the
healthcare delivery model to meet the
needs of the community both in and
outside of the hospital and as we live
in an increasingly diverse society we
need to be able to respond appropriately
and sensitively and because we’re
challenged with many inequalities in the
healthcare system
and also in various social systems it’s
really our duty to identify strategies
that will address the imbalances or the
limitations of the system so I really
felt now my goal was clear and I also
felt an obligation to underrepresented
minorities as well as the future
populations that they would serve to
identify and create interventions that
will begin to create the environment
that welcomes and respects everyone
it’s equal access opportunity and
justice my voice may be the only voice
that will rise above those that are
feeling oppression whether it’s due to
race whether it’s due to financial
status lifestyle physical limitations or
level of education the community and the
nursing profession need me as a partner
to be able to advance equitable
healthcare and as a nurse I now share in
both the blessing and the burden of
creating a greater social good and I
cannot be afraid to enlighten others of
the importance of diversity and
inclusivity and reducing disparities in
health care at first I felt my voice was
only a whisper I was called on to design
a summer program that would bring
underrepresented minority to the Duke
University School of Nursing for six
weeks with the purpose of igniting their
passion and interest in Nursing these
first ten students really showed me the
importance of mentoring and advocacy and
six of the ten entered into the School
of Nursing and graduated with their
nursing degrees but they share with me
that it was the passion that we
demonstrated for their future that was
the key to their success but it was the
story of one young student that made me
realize that I couldn’t just be an
inspiration I had to find and help
students find real solutions to
real-life problems
this student was a single mother and had
many financial constraints and she came
to my house one week because she didn’t
have money for gas and at that time I
noticed that her toddler was sick and I
asked her what she was giving him and
she said well I don’t have money for
medicine and so while I was able to give
her gas money and money for medicine I
thought about those students who had no
such person to depend who were they
counting on
in addition to that every semester she
was struggling to pay her tuition and
she had to depend on the kindness of
family and friends the school even
this really tugged at my own memories of
being 16 and really wanting to attend
college I was a high school graduate at
16 I was academically gifted but it was
just because of the situation my family
was in that I was unable to attend at
that time the decision I made to join
the military was in part to provide
funds for that but I also wanted to be
able to support myself independently the
educational support was there but as a
young enlisted seaman I couldn’t afford
the cost of living and I worked many
extra jobs to maintain so now it was
clear that my voice had to become louder
in order to address these real-life
challenges my students were facing my
vision is to see a healthcare system
where the diversity of a nursing
workforce is as similar to or matches
the diversity of the communities we
serve and while you might be sitting
there saying why is this so important I
will tell you that we have some strong
supportive evidence from not only the
Institute of Medicine and a ACM which is
the American Association of Colleges of
Nursing but there are various other
stakeholders that agree that there is a
strong relationship between a culturally
diverse nursing workforce and the
ability to provide quality culturally
competent care and by failing to have
nurses that resemble the diversity of
the communities they serve they leave
have many who are left feeling excluded
from a system that already seems very
distant and uncaring Duke University
School of Nursing continues to make
significant strides and I dare say we
are a leading force in this shortage of
underrepresented minor
nurses and future nurse leaders but
designing programs that really are
focused on addressing the social
determinants of health that prevent
present as barriers and we advocate for
interventions that meet the needs of
these students we have a steadfast
commitment to the nursing workforce to
make it look like the America we live in
so remember when I said we need to
create real-life solutions the awarding
of to her so nursing workforce diversity
grants were powerful mechanisms that set
in motion the development and
implementation of strategies that were
specifically designed to prepare
underrepresented minorities for careers
in nursing as well as graduate level
degrees we also had to ensure the
interventions address specific
challenges that minority students
encounter when attending majority
institutions feelings of loneliness and
isolation were two of the most
identified barriers so it was really
important to have mechanisms in place
that would address these students not
only academically but also socially and
emotionally so a social worker along
with other institutional support systems
like Duke student wellness and Duke
reach addresses areas that are beyond
our capacity as faculty and while I
serve as a main academic coordinator it
is the support of our entire faculty
that has made this program a success
thirty-one students have completed the
summer program and twenty-one who
matriculated into our accelerator
Bachelors of Science and nursing program
all successfully completed the program
and are working in health care systems
across the United States
these students are now focused on
continuing their education and are now
moving into master and doctoral level
education with the goal of returning to
communities that are underserved and
have underrepresented populations
so what I’d like to leave you with right
now is a call to action in order to
diversify the nursing workforce it takes
more than a single strategy and a few
schools committed to the cause the only
way that we will achieve equity in this
area is for all Health Professions to
ask the question of what steps they’re
taking or how they’re contributing to
improving the gap between the number of
minority health care providers and the
number of minorities and the populations
are the small communities that we serve
and I assert that enhancing and creating
an environment that is supportive and
inclusive is each of our
responsibilities while my world is
health care your world can be wherever
you work live or play look around and if
everybody looks exactly like you no
matter what your race is it is time to
take action if you hear a voice even a
whisper be sure you listen and act it
could make all the difference in the
world thank you [Applause]