MILANIA HARRIS: I don't think most people
go in knowing they're explicitly anything
but it's there deep down whether they deal with it or not.
ANNA WOEPKE: You can kind of tell that they
have a bias towards one thing.
It's just a slip of a word.
SARAH CRAIG: If a nurse says stand
in the corner for this entire patient encounter
and don't speak, what do you say in that moment?
TOMEKA DOWLING: What do you do when
you're faced with that difficult conversation?
You hear bias happening?
What do you do?
ASHLEY HURST: A spotlight has been placed on ways
that we discriminate and disadvantage
people in our population.
It's not outside the curriculum, this
is at the core of the curriculum.
TOMEKA DOWLING: Our nursing students
have been asking for this, they've
been asking for instruction and guidance
on how do you handle difficult situations.
This is critical for nurses to do it while you're learning.
It's foundational.
It becomes a part of who you are,
it becomes a part of how you think, your mindset.
How do we equip them now in a student role
so that when they are nurses, they'll
know how to respond in the profession?
KIMBERLY ACQUAVIVA: I spend a lot
of time talking about race, racism, and privilege
in every class I teach.
Nurses have, as part of their code of ethics, an obligation
to advocate for the elimination of racial injustice and racism.
So, I teach students about this.
And I talk about privilege, I talk about the privilege
that my white skin conveys anytime I walk into a room.
MILANIA HARRIS: I've seen, I guess racism in healthcare
before with my own family and it's not pretty.
People don't like to think that they
can be the one perpetuating these things but they can.
THERESA CARROLL: That's why this is work that people
like me have to do, right?
Because honestly, I don't have 250 years
of exhaustion sitting on my shoulders
like some of our students do.
ANNA WOEPKE: A lot of the things that we've
talked about in these groups are being
able to step back, reflect on how you're
feeling in that moment, and then be
able to make the change going forward.
MILANIA HARRIS: I came up with the idea of the new nursing
pledge that's going to be hopefully plastered
on a banner in the top of the website.
That was birthed from those groups,
too, which I'm really excited for.
THERESA CARROLL: I think one of the reasons why we've
had so much enthusiasm, energy, eagerness for what we're
doing this summer is because we do
have a population of students that more and more and more
really do reflect that population around us,
that community we're going to serve.
And so suddenly there's some power in voices.
MILANIA HARRIS: I could tell people
it's like, they're afraid to uncover things
about themselves that may come off
as offensive or problematic.
And I say, knowing those things is a lot better than pretending
like they're not there.
So, it's OK to go digging and find some things about yourself
that may be uncomfortable and you
don't want to be vulnerable about but taking
that step is really big and being
the best nurse you can be.
TOMEKA DOWLING: If we never educate or take the time
to step up and say something, we as a community, as a culture,
as a society would still be doing
things that was happening in the 1960s, 1930s, even beyond that.
ANNA WOEPKE: It makes me realize that I
should be standing up for people more than I have been.
That it's not OK right now to be sitting on the sidelines
and just cheering them on, you have to be playing the sport,
you have to be playing the game with them.