I have a unique position and “role” in the nursing community. I get the lucky card of double minority being male, and an African American in the nursing profession. What this means for me is that for many organizations I am the “go to” for minority recruitment and diversity efforts. This became all the more evident not to long ago when my hospital was looking for a “black male” to stage a picture for their prominent nursing publication. Well this is nothing new to me, I’ve always known as a black male I’d be a “hot commodity” if I ever made something of myself.
Hallmark of February (black history month), UMSL was holding their African Americans in Nursing Conference. With my hospital being a sponsor, for the second year in a row I got an invitation. Last year I was out of town, so this year I was actually able to attend. The conference featured amazing speakers and keynote addresses highlighting population specific health issues within the African American community.
Dr. Delores Gunn, director of the St. Louis County Health Department (pictured above in the middle lower row) was the morning keynote speaker. Dr. Gunn spoke of her efforts to transform healthcare in St. Louis county over the years, but all the more importantly spoke to the history of African Americans in nursing. Dr. Gunn very eloquently shared how African Americans have been nursing since slavery. As house mother and “The Help”, African American females have been performing the core values of nursing since way before the first African American nurse, Mary Mahoney entered the professional nursing practice at age 33 in 1879.
This stuck.
While I could go on with more detail of Dr. Gunn’s expository, not much else needs to be said. Reflection upon this history speaks volumes to the nursing profession. As the nursing profession continues to seek to develop a more diverse field of professionals reflective of the nursing climate, without an understanding of various minority groups history in the context of the discipline, recruitment efforts will continue to struggle. You see, while some may brush these nuggets of history aside, to those populations these things “matter”. In the context of business, they are the “buy in”.
As a male nurse, I care who was the first male in nursing and why.
As an African American nurse, I want to know why there are so few and what happened along the line.
Long story short: The history of the diverse field of nursing minorities matter. Minority professional nursing groups matter. Minority focused nursing conferences matter.
I know (at least for now) I’ll continue be the ‘poster child’, but one day, will I ever be considered part of the norm?
Brandon Rachal 