If you are White, no one is saying your life is not hard or that you have not struggled. It means that your life is not even harder because of the color of your skin. An excellent systemic racism video.
*NEVER FORGET THAT RACISM. IS. A. PUBLIC. HEALTH. ISSUE (as is police brutality).You are treated differently in the healthcare system based on where you live and the color of your skin, whether you want to believe it or not. It happens consciously and subconsciously. It is called implicit bias. –> Here is some US healthcare disparity info. <– *Black women are still DYING more than White women during childbirth even when SES, job, education level, and all other factors are equal. Read How America is Failing its Black Mothers.
Support BLM & Educate Yourself
*Black-Owned Etsy shops found here *Black-Owned Businesses found here *How to find black-owned businesses
*Nurses & HCP: move beyond cultural competency to cultural humility!! You must now be actively ANTI-racist. Challenge your racist family members and/or coworkers. Stop saying “all lives matter” when they clearly don’t. Take a stand or this world won’t ever change. #BlackLivesMatter #NoJusticeNoPeace
I recently volunteered to exclusively work in our main adult COVID ICU (on my old general care peds unit). There are multiple COVID-19 ICUs and moderate care floors throughout the health system. It is terrifying to see two critically ill adults in each room when there used to be one isolette or crib for relatively healthy children. Every night I learn how to do more and more ICU care to help the primary nurses as much as I can. My first night I helped get a bagged body ready for the morgue. My second night I saw family come to the bedside of a man in his 30s to be with him before he passed. Most patients are intubated and several are on continuous renal replacement therapy (CRRT). None of this is fair. None of it seems real. It is very surreal to see room after room with patients maxed out on ventilator settings, sedation, pressors, and barely surviving. In some rooms you can hardly move with all of the IV pumps, machines, supplies, and equipment. I cried the first time I walked the RICU halls, but now feel somewhat immune to the trauma we see at work or watch on TV every day. Then, I find out patients I helped bathe, turn, or draw labs for died that next day and I break down again. My emotions, probably like yours, are all over the place. I can’t always label them but I do know a lot of what I’m feeling is grief. Grief from what our lives were supposed to be like this spring, grief from cancelled events or missed trips, grief from not seeing friends/family, grief from actual death around us, and grief from our old way of life as we transition to a ‘new normal.’
I am thankful however, to have all of the PPE I need to safely enter patient rooms. The entire unit is negative pressure too. This is NOT the reality for many nurses across the US and now some are even getting fired for refusing to work without N95s. While we did sign up for this job to help others, we did NOT sign up to do it without the equipment needed to protect ourselves. Our country was completely unprepared for this pandemic and its essential workers are feeling its detrimental effects the most. The good news is that the curve is flattening thanks to successful mitigation. Please continue to do your part by STAYING HOME until it is deemed safe to leave. You are helping save the world by doing so and the frontline can’t thank you enough. The next time you venture out don’t forget to thank our other crucial frontline staff ~ grocery store employees, postal carriers, truck drivers, bus drivers, chefs, janitors/EVS, and more! Stay strong, we will get through this.
#HAILtotheFrontline
“Just going to hold his hand for a bit, I don’t think he has long.”
FYI
“We know from history that when citizens become restless and protest to their leaders about lifting these sanctions too early, another rise in cases invariably occurs. In some places it was worse than the first peak.” -Howard Markel MD
African Americans represent 40% of COVID-19 deaths in MI but only represent 14% of our state’s population. The reasons for this can be attributed to multiple social determinants of health such as having a job that doesn’t allow ‘work from home’, lower income, fewer community resources, comorbidities etc. (this is Nursing 101)!
Proud of our Governor for creating a task force to help understand why these racial disparities are occurring and how we can remedy them.
Please remember you don’t have to be productive during quarantine. We are experiencing a trauma and your only job is to stay home and take care of yourself. Mental health is as much of a priority as physical health so don’t feel pressured into doing anything you aren’t comfortable doing right now. Two articles helped me understand this:A Trauma Psychologist Weighs In & Don’t Feel Like ‘Getting Things Done’?
Although racial/ethnic minorities make up ~34% of the US population, they only represent ~25% (11.5% Black, 6.1% Latino, 7.3% Asian) of the nursing workforce, as of 2016. 👩🏽⚕️👩🏾⚕️👩🏿⚕️
Diversity among nurses is crucial for providing culturally competent care and in turn, improving health outcomes. We can also help ALL of our coworkers become more culturally aware. One of my goals is to inspire more minorities to choose nursing in order to have a workforce more representative of the US. Having someone take care of you who looks like you, has a similar culture, may speak your language, and understands you can save lives. Every few weeks I’ll feature a fellow minority to share our unique stories.
“When I began at the University of Michigan, I was undecided on what I really wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be in the medical field but definitely not a physician. During freshman year, I was in a Health Science Scholars Program, where I researched multiple careers, listened to numerous speakers, and shadowed physicians but nothing sparked my interest. My grandmother, who is a nurse, told me to research the field and ironically my roommate was in the nursing program. I began doing my research and realized the endless possibilities in nursing. I immediately knew I wanted to be a nurse practitioner working as a midwife (that changed once I did my clinical lol). I decided to apply but was discouraged after listening to other applicants talk about the extra science pre-reqs they had while I only had the minimum. I was also discouraged by my counselor because she told me the nursing program rarely admits students of color. With everything against me, I took a leap and applied. I was admitted into the nursing program at the end of my sophomore year through their RN-BSN sophomore-transfer program. I was excited and a little upset because this meant I would have to do an extra year of undergrad (which means nothing now).
Going through nursing school was tough being 1 of the 7 African American females in a class of 180 students. I believe this increased my drive to exceed. I worked as a nurse tech in the PICU at St. John during my last year of nursing school. I graduated in April 2017 with a 3.7 and passed my NCLEX with 75 questions. Job searching fortunately was fairly easy. I got offered 4 pediatric nursing positions after graduation. These included: PICU at St. John, DMC Children’s ER, Mott Children’s as float nurse, and Beaumont Children’s. I decided to choose Beaumont Children’s because of location convenience and wanting to begin my career on a general pediatric floor, so I could become more familiar with common childhood illnesses and how they are treated.
My interest to specialize in pediatric nursing started while in nursing school. During my pediatric clinical rotation, I gained great insight into what it meant to care for children. I was very intrigued about how passionate the nurses were compared to those in adult nursing. They had to play a unique role in not only supporting their young patients, but also comforting families while explaining patient conditions and providing emotional support. Initially, I couldn’t imagine having the responsibility of facing the family of a seriously ill child and standing with strength enough to not only instruct them on how to best care for their child, but to also help build their faith in the face of, in some cases, a discouraging prognosis. The realization about the innate resilience of children solidified my decision to specialize in pediatric nursing. It helped me not only feel more comfortable and confident working with the pediatric population compared to adults, it also affected the way I presented while caring for my patients. I became more confident in my ability to encourage families because I began to truly believe in the strength of children to promote healing.
After working for 2.5 years in pediatrics, I have gained so much insight into what it means to be a nurse. I have learned that it takes great responsibility, tenacity, and accountability to care for the life of another. After working for 1 year, I decided to go back to school to get my master’s as a Primary Care Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. This desire was matured through my previous and current work environment. I have passion to work in underserved communities to promote health and prevent/manage childhood illnesses. Working in the city of Detroit and surrounding suburbs has allowed me to see the difference in access to healthcare and health education. I understand that there is a lack of support and opportunity, which negatively affects the health of these communities. This drove my desire to do more and increased my inclination for continuing education among this patient demographic. Working as a CPNP-PC, I will be able to make choices that I believe will benefit the community and turn my advocacy into action. After completing my education, I plan to work in an underserved community providing outreach and educational programs either in clinics or school-based settings. Long term, I plan to participate in local legislative affairs relating to children’s health policy and reform.
Sadly, there is still a lack of minorities in the field. I see this every day at my job. I try to encourage young black girls to keep pursuing this career because although it can be challenging, having minorities in nursing allows for better health outcomes of underrepresented patient populations.”
I used to think that the New Year was the only time to start over. While it can be a good time to make a major change in your life, it is not the only time you can choose to be a better you. Each new month or even new week can be a time to restart. We need more than one time a year to recharge and rechannel our energy. New Year’s resolutions often fail in January and become a distant thought by March. We end up disappointed if we did not lose a certain number of pounds or follow through with a gym membership, finish a diet, repair a particular relationship, learn a new skill, save more money, get the new job etc. I’m tired of beating myself up for not achieving every single one of my resolutions. This year, I am choosing to be aware of what I do have and focus on gratitude instead. I like who I’m becoming and want to be more aware of my blessings this up coming year. I challenge you to do the same. By being consciously aware of all that you have in your life, you can improve almost every situation you’re in. Don’t think of it as a new you, but an improved you.
With a new decade comes even more pressure to have even bigger and better resolutions. I want to assure you that gratitude and developing/using affirmations are the best changes you can add to your routine for an improved life. Choose to be thankful for one thing each day or up to ten things each day, whatever makes the most sense to you. Maybe choose to make a list at the end of the week or month. I was gifted a New Year’s gratitude journal a few years ago and didn’t fill out more than two pages. Even that was too much pressure. However, this year (and decade) I am taking that pressure away. Even if I just say to myself what I am thankful for each day, tell someone close to me, or write it on a sticky note, that will be enough. The feeling I get when telling a friend ‘I’m so happy we’re catching up and having dinner together’, outweighs anything negative that happened to me that week. As silly as it sounds, even stress from school is a privilege. Not everyone has the opportunity to go to college or graduate school, so stressing over exams isn’t the worst thing you could stress about.
As a nurse (or any healthcare provider), we have the privilege of taking care of people in their most fragile state. For the most part, our health is intact and we have a job that pays well. No matter how tired, we get to come home to our families after work. Our patients on the other hand, may spend the night in the hospital without their parents, parents may wonder how they will pay for the hospital bills, some may be newly diagnosed with a chronic illness, and some may be at the end stage of their illness. We are likely seeing them during the most difficult part of their lives. This is especially hopefully true for our littlest ones. I don’t say this to compare yourself to people in crisis or serious situations, but to be thankful for all you do have; most importantly, your health. If there is no other change you make in the New Year, make it a priority to remember all that you were given.
10 things I am grateful for in 2019:
Reuniting with old friends. I took the leap and reached out to friends who I lost contact with years ago. I am extremely glad these women are back in my life and couldn’t imagine my life going forward without them.
Starting yoga again. I stopped after undergrad and am glad to have found such a welcoming, inclusive, inspiring, and impressive studio. It’s DYL!!
Whale watching with my mom in Mexico. Enough said.
Seeing Hamilton. It was on my bucket list and it lived up to absolutely everything said about it!
Spending my birthday in Traverse City. I went to my favorite wineries with my favorite people and parasailed for the first time since I was 18.
Going to Sicily with my uncle and cousins. I am reminded why I am grateful for my uncle almost every day, but these trips make me just even more grateful to be alive. The boat rides and swimming with Mount Etna in the background made up for my jellyfish sting on our 1st day haha.
Purchasing a car. I’ve driven a lease jeep since I was 16 so it was a huge accomplishment to finally buy one of my own (also shout out to my dad for guiding me through the whole process).
Surviving my 1st acute care clinical. I was in a pediatric ED and pleased with the confidence I gained and all that I learned.
The health of myself, friends, andfamily.
Starting my blog. I was hesitant about writing again and making my posts public for everyone to judge. However, I’m so glad I overcame this fear and here we are 😊
I encourage you to create a similar list of ten (or more) things you are grateful for in 2019. Share it on Facebook or read it aloud to your family and friends. Make a list together or keep it private. Let’s also share positive new stories that show the good around the world and in other people. Start your New Year and new decade with a grateful heart and peaceful mind!
“Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life,” -Rumi.
