Diversity Digest Newsletter: Winter 2022

 

The Diversity Digest is a quarterly newsletter that highlights AACN's diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and efforts from AACN member schools promoting DEI in the academic nursing community. Please send details about your school's DEI initiatives to cdowning@aacnnursing.org. 

 

For more information on AACN’s diversity initiatives, visit the AACN website.

 

Sawyer to Sarah: A Tale of a Transgender Student's Journey
 

A group of colleagues in a nursing department in the deep south evaluated one student's experience transitioning to their preferred gender while in an associate degree nursing program at another institution. Sarah’s experience transitioning while in nursing school illuminates failures within and opportunities to provide support for those seeking gender affirmation. The majority of individuals within the LGBT community express their attraction preference by the time they are 17, just prior to the start of the traditional college-age within professional academic programs (Pew Research Center, 2013). Statistics show the typical age for transgender women to begin social transition is around 27 years old and 22 years old for transgender men (Zaliznyak et al., 2020). Many individuals in academic programs in health care begin their social transitions, just as Sarah did, while growing their professional identity and knowledge in health care. 

 

Sarah began having feelings of gender dysphoria at the age of 5, became openly gay at the age of 12, and identified as transgender at the age of 19, while in nursing school. Sarah did not begin using her preferred pronoun (she/her) until she could “pass” as female. She shared that the burden and hassle of correcting others while presenting mostly male was too difficult. As she began presenting more feminine, she found it easier to ask others to use her preferred pronoun and name. She did encounter difficulties with the name badge given to her to use in the clinical setting, feeling it was too difficult to change while in nursing school after having a difficult time changing with this same issue in her job setting. She feared patients may not want her caring for them if they saw she was transgender (appearing female but having a male name on her badge).

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Generation Z Nurses Need Strategies to Improve Their Wellbeing
 

In May 2022, schools of nursing across the United States will graduate future registered nurses who have received nearly all their nursing education during the COVID-19 pandemic. Most of these soon-to-be college graduates are young adult members of Generation Z (ages 18-24). These young adults have grown up in uncertain times, prompted by their early exposure to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, weather disasters, school shootings, and now the coronavirus where they have witnessed or experienced health disparities, racial injustices, economic insecurity, and adverse mental health issues. These issues have led many Generation Zers (Gen Z) to be pragmatic, guarded, and worried about their emotional, physical, and financial security.

 

Under normal circumstances, stress and anxiety are common for undergraduate nursing students balancing their heavy didactic course work, stringent clinicals, and the pressure to succeed in their academic and personal lives. However, while these students were studying to become nurses during the pandemic, they had to adjust to virtual learning, simulation exercises instead of in-person clinical experiences, and train in the acute care settings where nursing and other healthcare staff are mentally and physically exhausted from being on the frontlines of the COVID-19 battle. Adding to the stress and anxiety, many underrepresented minority nursing student peers have experienced even more adverse mental health concerns. They suffered from COVID-19 infections and deaths within their families and communities at a much higher rate than their white classmates. They often disproportionately lacked technology and internet connectivity, experienced housing and food insecurity, and had increased anxiety over the racial and social injustices that were revealed during this time.

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The 2021 Diversity Symposium was a virtual conference held November 9-10, 2021. Nearly 600 registrations were received for this event. The conference opened with a land recognition offered by Dr. Bette Jacobs, a Professor of Health Systems Administration at Georgetown University. Mr. Glenn Singleton presented the opening plenary session with an introduction to Courageous Conversation™. This initial engagement with Courageous Conversation™ guided an exploration of the life impact and promoted an essential literacy and consciousness to examine personal, professional, and organizational ways of being. Designed to meet participants at whatever their level of experience, the introduction to Courageous Conversation™ enhanced efforts to promote racial equity.

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This network will be of particular interest to diversity officers, administrators responsible for multicultural/diversity affairs, and those serving in or aspiring to similar roles.