Scales, Davis, Stewart: Black Public Health Nursing Pioneers

This is the last in a series of four blog posts (listed below) by nurse and attorney Edie Brous that introduce readers to some of the many notable Black nurses of the past. We encourage readers to delve more deeply into these lives and their intersection with key aspects of nursing history, women’s history, and the long struggle against racist barriers.  

“Honoring Notable Black Nurses of History“

“Mahoney, Thoms, Franklin: Black Nurses and Reformers to Remember“

“The Nursing Work of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman“

In this post, I will draw attention to three public health pioneers who overcame racial barriers to excel and create a path for those who followed.

Jessie Sleet Scales (1865-1956)

A public health pioneer, Jessie Sleet Scales graduated in 1895 from Provident Hospital and Training School in Chicago, America’s first Black-owned and -operated hospital. From there she went to Freedmen’s Hospital Training School at Howard University, Washington, D.C., for a special six-month course.

In her nursing career, Scales initially encountered rejection and racial barriers despite her training and a shortage of registered nurses. The Charity Organization Society in New York City hired her as a district nurse in 1900 to visit Black homes during the tuberculosis epidemic. She was given a two-month experimental trial, but did so well that she was kept on as a district nurse and visitor with the organization for nine years. Her supervisor was so impressed by Scales’ work that she submitted her report to the American Journal of […]

2023-05-23T09:31:03-04:00May 22nd, 2023|Nursing|0 Comments
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The Nursing Work of Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman

Both Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman are known for their courageous struggles against slavery, their humanitarian work, and their support of suffrage. They are not known as much as they should be, however, for their role as nurses. (Editor’s note: this is the third in a series about important Black nurses of the past that we are publishing during Nurses Month 2023. Previous posts are here and here.)

Sojourner Truth

Sojourner Truth (1797-1883)

Isabella Baumfree was born into slavery in 1797 in New York State and grew up speaking Dutch. While still enslaved, she provided nursing care to the Dumont family. These nursing skills were used after she escaped slavery in 1826 with her infant daughter. In 1828, she became the first Black woman to sue a white man in a U.S. court and win, thereby recovering her son who had been sold into slavery in Alabama. In 1843, Baumfree’s religion convinced her that it was her mission to travel and testify. She changed her name to Sojourner Truth and throughout the rest of her long and complex life was to fight for the rights of African Americans and women.

During the Civil War, the U.S. War Department appointed Truth to Freedmen’s Hospital in Washington, DC, the first hospital that […]

2023-05-17T11:28:49-04:00May 17th, 2023|Nursing|1 Comment
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Nurse Staffing Standards Act Is First Step in Solving Nursing Shortage

Nurses planning to leave the profession.

The nursing shortage continues, with no end in sight. In my current position as faculty in a university DNP program, I hear from students about caring for overwhelming numbers of patients and fearing for their patients’ safety and health. Nurses are suffering burnout because they are caring for so many patients they know nursing care is being missed. A recent survey found that job satisfaction has been dropping for nurses, while the percentage who say they may leave the profession is as high as 30% overall, with younger nurses most likely to say they may leave.

Nurse educators do our best, but we know that we are sending new graduates into the fire. Retired nurses worry about our family members (and ourselves) when we need nursing care.

Congress recently reintroduced the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act. This bill would mandate direct care registered nurse-to-patient staffing ratio requirements in hospitals. It has been introduced in several prior congressional sessions with little progress. We cannot let this window of opportunity pass.

Nurse staffing and patient outcomes.

Linda Aiken’s two decades of research demonstrate the effects of nurse staffing on patient outcomes. Despite legislative efforts in Massachusetts and […]

2023-06-13T06:57:19-04:00May 11th, 2023|health care policy, Nursing, Public health|5 Comments
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Mahoney, Thoms, Franklin: Black Nurses and Reformers to Remember

Nursing is a challenging profession that requires expertise, dedication, and compassion. Black nurses have made significant contributions to the field, yet their stories often go untold. In this second post in a four-part series for this Nurses Month (here’s the first post), I continue to highlight the achievements of Black nurses who have worked to provide quality care despite discrimination and prejudice. This post will focus on Mary Eliza Mahoney (1845-1926), Adah Belle Samuels Thoms (1870-1943), and Martha Minerva Franklin (1870-1968) as well as on the collaboration among them.

Mary Eliza Mahoney

One of the most prominent Black nurses in history, Mary Eliza Mahoney, was born in 1845 to parents free from slavery. She became the first Black registered nurse in the United States in 1879 after completing a rigorous training program at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. She was the only Black student in her class and one of only four out of 41 who completed the rigorous program.

Hospitals did not hire Black nurses, nor did public health agencies, forcing her to work as a private duty nurse for mostly wealthy white families. Mahoney spent the next 40 years in clinical practice while fighting for acceptance of Black nurses into the larger nursing community. Her advocacy inspired many other Black women […]

2023-05-08T16:01:18-04:00May 8th, 2023|Black nurses, Nursing, nursing history|2 Comments
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Black Boxes in the Operating Room: Improving Quality of Care and Patient Safety

What’s covered in this post?

  • Black boxes record video, audio, and data from multiple sources in the operating room (OR), such as cameras, microphones, patient monitoring equipment, and medical devices.
  • By offering transparency on the multiple simultaneous processes in the OR, black box data can be used to improve safety and efficiency, train staff, and onboard new nurses.
  • The data can be used for retrospective analysis of specific events or aggregate analysis to detect patterns and variations in practice over time.
  • Black box data has been used to improve and standardize OR processes such as handling tissue samples, handoff communication during shift changes, and pre-surgical patient positioning.
  • The data is de-identified and is normally deleted within 30 days.
  • Finding what went right and learning from it is the goal, not pointing fingers.

Figures in the OR as recorded and de-identified by an OR Black Box. Image courtesy Surgical Safety Technologies.

Rebecca McKenzie, DNP, MBA, MSN, RN, assistant vice president of perioperative services at Duke University Hospital, recently spoke with AJN about her hospital’s use of black boxes in operating rooms (ORs) to standardize key processes to improve safety and efficiency, train […]

2023-05-26T15:01:50-04:00May 5th, 2023|Nursing, patient safety, Quality improvement, Technology|1 Comment
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Views expressed on the blog are solely those of the authors or persons quoted. They do not necessarily reflect AJN’s views or those of Wolters Kluwer Health/Lippincott Williams and Wilkins.
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