The future of nursing should begin with people and community/population health. And to do that we need to disrupt our tired, outdated approach to nurse education. Not by tweaking here and there. Not by investing tons of money in yet more high tech simulation labs and “dummies.” Not by asking ourselves and our students, “What would Florence do?” (as in the Florence Nightingale, important as she is). Rather, we should begin by asking, “What would Dorothea do?” (as in Dorothea Dix, US and international mental health reformer) and “What would Lillian do? (as in Lillian Wald, the “mother of public health nursing” and founder of the Henry Street Settlement House in New York City).
“Begin with people, not body parts,” is what one of our nursing students told us recently when she heard that we are disrupting our pre-licensure nursing program at the University of Washington. Starting this coming academic year (begins in September), we will begin with people—with community, public health nursing instead of the longstanding “traditional” acute care medical-surgical nursing. I am excited to be teaching this “new” community/public health nursing course. It will begin at the true beginning with the social determinants of health equity. Not just with the social determinants of health (SDH)—those factors that affect our health from where we live, work and play. The social determinants of health equity extends past the SDH to acknowledge and address the inequities inherent in our society that affect health, including structural racism, and all the other “isms” of longstanding discrimination against women, persons of color, LGBTQ people, disabled folks, and the aged. Dr. Camara Jones and her “Cliff of Good Health” is the best illustration of this.
The Future of Medicine 2030 Seattle Town Hall was held at the University of Washington this morning. This builds on and extends the work of the Institute of Medicine’s Future of Nursing report back in 2010. The theme of today’s town hall meeting was “High Tech, High Touch.” I was dismayed (okay, I was irritated) that the lead speaker at today’s event was a physician, Molly Coye, who is an executive-in residence with AVIA, a network of US health systems “solving problems with digital technologies.” It is the “The Future of Nursing” after all and not “The Future of Our Insanely Expensive and Ineffective US Healthcare System.” And it should be led by nurses!
The one truly inspirational speaker at today’s event was a nurse—Dean Kenya Beard from Nassau Community College in New York. She spoke of some of the drawbacks of health technology and how they can amplify health inequities and how most of the proprietary algorithms for high tech “solutions” lack transparency. She called out the pressing need for nurse educators to “rise above any level of discomfort” and address structural racism and interventions that work. As to structural racism in our country she stated, “humans created it and only humans can destroy it.” She ended her talk with, “We need daring ingenuity.”
My question/comment which I posted online during the town hall was this:
“Why aren’t we using the much more useful term “social determinants of health equity” versus the rather status quo term “social determinants of health”? Why aren’t we killing forever the outdated and unhelpful message to our nursing students that they “have to have at least two years of inpatient med-surg” work before they go on (yes, go on) to community, public/population health nursing? Why aren’t we stopping the practice of educating nursing students to be “agents of social control” and instead to be “agents of social change?” Also, thanks for the refreshingly honest and necessary presentation and perspective from Kenya—Brava!
I am happy to hear “begin with people, not body parts” is gaining traction. Would a next step be “continue with people, in right proportion with medical technology”…?
Agree. “Begin with people, not body parts” should continue on with that reminder and a balance.