Racial Healing Circles for nurses

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  As nurses, you are acutely aware of how the COVID 19 pandemic has taken a toll on the physical and mental health of people around the world. This crisis has amplified the inequities in healthcare across communities of color. Early on, nurses such as Lillian Ward have been at the forefront of socially minded health care delivery. Ward was one of the first nurses to identify and address "upstream" causes for illness such as racial injustice, unsafe labor laws, and reduced access to health care. We are also aware that money is not the sole solution needed to improve health care in the United States because nurses see firsthand the necessity of social networks. It not only takes a village to raise a child, but it also takes a village to promote health and care for the sick and elderly. 

We are only as healthy as our ability to build a just society.   

 .  While nurses have endured an overwhelming onslaught of stress while delivering care, they have also endured racial injustice and gender discrimination, or bore witness to it, with their employers and within their communities. Whereas 60% of the American Population is white, we find that 75% of nurses are white. Non-white nurses report having to experience racially based policy decisions, abuse from patients and increased emotional labor stemming from the need to maneuver around microaggressions. This leads to increased stress that negatively impact their ability to work as an equal professional in the health care setting. 

Developing a dialog that includes compassionate and deep listening helps us prepare for social change.