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A Nursing Perspective on Addressing Racism and Health Inequities

Editor’s note: We’ve all witnessed the recent public outcry against instances of racist behavior and brutality. As nurses, we also witness the toll racism takes on health as well as the racial inequities in access to care and within health care institutions. In the below blog post, AJN senior editor Corinne McSpedon excerpts her recent conversation about these topics with Monica McLemore. I also encourage you to listen to the recent webinar, Nursing’s Role in Addressing Racism, in which a panel of nurses address structural racism, how it prevents health equity, and what actions one can take to change or influence change. You can earn one contact hour of CNE credit.—Maureen Shawn Kennedy, AJN editor-in-chief

Confronting racism during the pandemic.

Over the summer, I spoke with Monica McLemore, PhD, MPH, RN, FAAN, to discuss antiracism efforts amid the COVID-19 crisis and the nationwide demonstrations against police brutality. McLemore is an associate professor in the Department of Family Health Care Nursing at the University of California, San Francisco, where she is also affiliated with the Bixby Center for Global Reproductive Health. She previously worked for nearly three decades as a public health and staff nurse.

Below are highlights of this discussion. The full article, A Conversation with Monica R. McLemore, […]

Corinne McSpedon, senior editor2020-09-24T08:55:03-04:00September 24th, 2020|Nursing|0 Comments

Frontline Nurses Speak Out – A Health Care Crisis That ‘Didn’t Have to Be This Way’

Themes of heartbreak, heroics, exhaustion, sadness, and anger.

Previously on this blog, I posted about the Frontline Nurses WikiWisdom Forum, an initiative AJN joined back in March to bring forth the experiences and thoughts of nurses working at the point of care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together with Cynda Rushton (Johns Hopkins School of Nursing & Berman Institute of Bioethics and AJN editorial board member) and Theresa Brown (nurse, author, and AJN contributing editor) and the folks at New Voice Strategies, we solicited stories from nurses from around the country. Of the many who visited the site, 463 nurses joined and shared their experiences.

Forum moderator Cindy Richards, a professional journalist, worked with four “thought leaders” from the nurses to organize the themes and recommendations from the rich content posted by the nurses.

And while we recognize that the pandemic is far from over (United States cases as of September 20 were over 6.7 million, approaching 200,000 deaths and still on the rise), we felt we had reached a critical mass of content. The stories echoed repetitive themes of heartbreak, heroics, exhaustion, sadness, and anger.

“Nurses often put their patients’ needs before their own. That didn’t change during the pandemic. What did change is that nurses saw the level […]

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Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2020-09-22T09:47:24-04:00September 22nd, 2020|COVID-19, infectious diseases, Nursing, nursing perspective, Public health|0 Comments

Documentary Filmmaker: The ED Reflects Everything Going on in Our Country

A new documentary profiles emergency nurses.

If you think the photo on the cover of the September issue is dramatic, it’s because it was taken during the emergency treatment of a young man with a gunshot wound. (See On the Cover for details.)

The photo is from the new film by filmmaking team Carolyn Jones and Lisa Frank, In Case of Emergency, which was made in concert with the Emergency Nurses Association to mark its 50th anniversary.

Michelle Lyon, RN, an ED nurse at the University of Kentucky Albert B. Chandler Hospital, Lexington.

The film’s release is scheduled for October 14th, the beginning of Emergency Nurses Week, and we highlight the film in a photo-essay in the September issue. (The article is free until the end of the month, and best viewed as a pdf.)

The film follows the work of ED nurses in several parts of the country. As a former ED nurse, I was struck by the ability of these filmmakers to accurately capture the work.

Scenes showing what […]

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2020-09-10T14:18:29-04:00September 10th, 2020|narratives, Nursing|0 Comments

In a Formidable Nursing Career, Bernardine Lacey Faced and Overcame Racism

Her story is important to know, because it offers an opportunity to learn from the not-too-distant past and explore some of the difficult truths about racism in nursing, the role of the profession in this history, and the effect of these accounts on current diversity and inclusivity efforts.

Lacey meeting with first lady Barbara Bush in the White House in the 1980s.

So write Sandra Lewenson and Ashley Graham-Perel in their article in the August issue of AJN, ‘You Don’t Have Any Business Being This Good’: An Oral History Interview with Bernardine Lacey. In the article, they recount Lacey’s upbringing in the South and the many racial barriers that made it difficult for her in getting an education and pursuing her career—which became a formidable one. As a result of her many accomplishments in education, practice, and leadership, she was named a Living Legend by the American Academy of Nursing in 2014.

Racial barriers remain.

Shawn Kennedy, MA, RN, FAAN, editor-in-chief (emerita)2020-08-17T09:38:48-04:00August 17th, 2020|career, Nursing, nursing history|0 Comments

Many in Health Care Have Made Sense of COVID Through Art or Poetry

Since March, AJN has been inundated with COVID-19–related manuscripts from around the world, ranging from prospective feature articles to submissions for this blog as well as our Reflections and Viewpoint columns. Not unexpectedly, we are also seeing many visual art and poetry submissions to our Art of Nursing column as we all try to make sense of this pandemic experience.

Art of Nursing selections.

In the July issue, we feature a drawing and two poems that reflect the times, as well as a reprint of a recent post from this blog.

The drawing, Behind the Front Lines, is by Hayley Jasper, an award-winning artist who is a junior in high school. Hayley’s piece was inspired by her mother, who is an ICU nurse in a COVID-19 unit.

The poem “Alone, surrounded” was written by Dublin geriatrician Shane O’Hanlon. Behavioral health nurse Marianne Broyles wrote the poem “Using Time Wisely During COVID-19.” Here’s a brief excerpt: