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A Musical Score Musician, nurse, and CNA/NNOC board member kathryn donahue helped bring the union behind Northern California's remote Redwood Curtain. by e ri ka l ars on L uck is a funny thing. CNA/ NNOC almost missed out on benefiting from the leadership of Kathryn Donahue, RN, one of the pioneering members of the St. Joseph's Hospital steering committee that first brought the nurses' union to far-flung Humboldt County. In the early 1990s, when attacks on nursing scope of practice were at their most insidious, Donahue seriously pondered a career change. Having always loved singing and playing music, she began studying for her degree in music education at Humboldt State University. Arts funding was tight, though, and Donahue remained a nurse. "At first it was only the salary difference that kept me in nursing. But then I got involved in organizing our facility and everything changed," she says. Donahue was born in Massachusetts to a large extended family that still dots the East Coast. Her father's job kept them moving, and throughout her childhood Donahue saw diverse areas of the country, from Arlington to Denver, before finally settling in the Los Angeles area. She first became interested in a career as a caregiver when, right out of high school, she took a job in a veterinarian's office. She immediately fell in love, not only with the animals she saw every day, but with the scientific aspect of providing healthcare. "I thought, 'If this is so much fun with animals, then it must be great with people.'" "Nursing is so versatile," she explains. "Being a nurse can allow you the opportunity to live almost anywhere in the world, and practice in a wide variety of settings, from teaching to acute care to public health. Being a nurse is a win-win situation." She earned her ASN from Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut, Calif. and moved to Denver, Colo. to begin her nursing career. "I enjoyed Denver," she says with a smile, "but I missed the ocean." She decided to return to California, but rather than move back to Los Angeles, she searched for a new home using specific criteria: "I knew I wanted to live in a small town north of San Francisco with a public university in order to earn my BSN." That left three options: Rohnert Park, Chico, and Arcata. Donahue arrived in Arcata, some five hours' drive north of San Francisco and home to Humboldt State University, in the 1970s. Because nurse-to-patient ratios were still decades away, none of the local hospitals were hiring any extra nurses. It was then that Don22 REGISTERED NURSE ahue was hired to work in an acute-care facility on the Hoopa Indian Reservation, which runs along the Trinity River until it meets the Klamath River. "It was really small and self-contained. They did everything out there: inpatient treatment, labs, x-rays, births, ER." Donahue ended up staying for more than five years. "It's such a beautiful area, and the earth-based, holistic way of life that so many people practice on the reservation really resonates with me. I made wonderful friends in my time on the reservation." However, she says, the reservation had its fair share of problems as well. "Like any minority group, the members of the Hoopa nation had been kept oppressed for so long, and there are a lot of hurdles and obstacles they must overcome." During her tenure, Donahue says cocaine use W W W. C A L N U R S E S . O R G APRIL 2008