National Nurses United

What Makes Me Proud Earlier this year, San Mateo County public health RN Laarni San Juan decided to enter a White House Asian and Paci���c Islander Caucus Congressional Institute contest for essays re���ecting the API psyche and sensibility. She was surprised to learn her essay was among ���ve ���nalists chosen. While she did not ultimately win the top prize, she was honored to attend the White House awards ceremony and already feels like a winner for her advocacy in physical and mental health. I am proud to be an Asian American in the United States. I am especially proud to be a Filipina American. I live each day with the values, vision, and goals that my family before me instilled: work hard, enjoy the fruits of labor, pray, and be thankful. I graduated as a nurse 18 years ago and I am extremely appreciative that I am in a profession where I am able to exercise those very family values and most importantly, give back. I am a public health nurse. You might ask, ���What is that?��� Most have heard of emergency room nurses, ICU nurses, labor and delivery nurses. Public health nurses work for government county agencies. We are in the communities and we help those who need it most: high-risk populations, youth, elderly, the low-income, marginalized, immigrants, the incarcerated, domestic violence victims, the drugaddicted, the impoverished. We come face to face with the very communities that SEPTEMBER 2012 often experience injustices from illresourced systems. Public health nurses help to link those who need health insurance, to advocate for those with meek voices, and to educate about basic, primary prevention. I feel fortunate to bring these gifts to the individuals I meet on a daily basis. I know that my brown skin is a window through which my patients can connect with me. ���She is Asian. She is one of us. She can understand what I���m trying to ask and say.��� I reassure patients that they do not have to explain nor feel the need to justify, because I do understand their message. I understand the pain, the suffering, the anxieties, and the joy behind the gestures and the words. I know that my skill as a nurse helps to further understand and clarify the disease processes, illnesses, or social ills. I put myself in their situation and explain in a way like I would explain to my 78-year-old mother whose primary language is Tagalog. When I do not know the answers, I let (continued on page 12) NNU Director Again Named One of Most Influential People in Healthcare National Nurses United Executive Director RoseAnn DeMoro won national recognition in August once again as one of the ���100 Most Influential People in Healthcare��� ��� the only advocate for nurses or other working people on a list published annually by Modern Healthcare, a prominent national healthcare industry publication. DeMoro, who is number 36 on the list of 100, is one of only eight people to be named to the list for each of the 11 years it has been compiled. She is also one of only two women to be named every year on a list that is dominated by figures in government and corporate healthcare institutions. ���We are incredibly proud to see RoseAnn recognized and honored year after year for both her outstanding leadership and accomplishments and the historic achievements by our national nurses��� movement and organization,��� said NNU Co-President Jean Ross, RN. At a time when Medicare has become a major issue in the presidential campaign, including a proposal by the Republican candidates to privatize Medicare, DeMoro and NNU have been in the forefront of national efforts to best protect Medicare by expanding it to cover everyone, a point emphasized in Modern Healthcare���s report on the Top 100. ���The stories are heartbreaking,��� DeMoro told Modern Healthcare. She also added that technology is the biggest influence in healthcare today, and that nurses are skeptical of technology that replaces human judgment and human touch. ���All the hospitals worship it, and they���re trying to provide healthcare without human beings. Nurses are now monitoring the monitor instead of monitoring the patient.��� ���Staff report W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G N AT I O N A L N U R S E 11

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