Backgrounds in the
foreground
Creating a more diverse nursing workforce will take ingenuity and creativity
By Stefanie Dell’Aringa Dan Suarez, MA, RN, is business development manager for
Nurse.com and OnCourse Learning and president of the National Association of Hispanic Nurses. He is a board member of the Alliance for Ethical International Recruitment Practices and a fellow at the New York Academy of Medicine. As president of NAHN, Suarez is committed to leading, promoting and advocating for education, professional and leadership opportunities for Hispanic nurses. NAHN welcomes members of any ethnic background.
Q:
What do you do as an organization to create a more diverse workforce?
A: NAHN received a grant from the National Institutes of Health to implement a public education and outreach project to increase diversity in the nursing workforce. Our partner, Hispanic Communications Network, will leverage its radio production expertise and national network of affiliate stations to record and broadcast a series of interviews featuring mentors and testimonials from nurses in Spanish and English. We want to admit high school students into our associa-
tion who are serious about becoming nurses as well as those who are in their first two years of college and want to go into nursing, but have not yet been admitted to a program. We can mentor them and expose them to an association that is willing to guide them through their education and career progression. We have a large LGBT community in nursing, so NAHN
developed a committee to address their needs. We work consistently to raise awareness and increase understand- ing of the importance of diversity in the profession. I’m proud to be part of this association, one that embraces the richness of diversity and ensures that our members are a reflection of that diversity.
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Explore various topics, including Spanish for Healthcare Providers, via interactive webinars, self-study readings and an online forum with peers and experts.
Q: DAN SUAREZ
DAN SUAREZ MA, RN
Why do we need more students with diverse backgrounds and how can we attract them?
A: NAHN promotes recruitment of Hispanic students in nursing programs to increase the number of bilingual and bicultural nurses. Only about 4% of RNs are Hispanic, so we need more to serve the increasing number of U.S. Hispanics, which is projected to reach 30% of the population by 2050. By 2043, minority populations in the U.S. will become the
majority, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. These statistics illustrate that nurses will be caring for a more progressively diverse population and that there is an increasing urgency to build a diverse RN workforce. When you have a diverse workforce, you have nurses with knowledge and skills to meet patients’ diverse needs.
Q:
What are the short - and long-term goals in regards to diversity?
A: Short-term, we need to mentor college students to help them get into nursing school and find success. We need to make sure the process of acceptance is fair and equal for all applicants. We know schools can only take so many students because they have a limited number of faculty. Some schools will place students on a waiting list, so many students choose a different career path while waiting for an opening. We need to look at our educational system and change it from top to bottom to reflect the future. Long-term, many professional organizations don’t have
a pipeline of young applicants. We need to help elementary schools focus more on healthcare, emphasize science and technology, and get students interested in the sciences in their early years. Overall, we need to look at how we’re developing our future health professionals. •
Stefanie Dell’Aringa is a freelance writer. 30 Visit us at
NURSE.com • 2016
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