Nurses of Color club champions nursing for all

Cover image: Nurses of Color board members in their scrubs. Credit: Kathy Vo

Nurses of Color, a club whose mission is to “strive to inspire and promote diversity in nursing with positivity while dismantling health disparities,” springs back from pandemic in full force

By Natalie Nemes

When the pandemic threw the world into chaos in 2020, universities and colleges across the country quickly switched to an online format to reduce the spread of COVID-19. As campuses went quiet for the safety of everyone, an unfortunate side effect was that various aspects of student life fell by the wayside, including clubs.

Nurses of Color was one club that was devastated by the pandemic and hardly had a presence two years ago. Now NOC is back and better than ever, having already hosted two events this year and planning for a nursing alumni panel in November.

NOC co-president Kathy Vo ‘25 (Nursing) hoped to participate in the club’s events her first year but was saddened by its inactivity. Now, she has joined the board to make a positive impact on the BIPOC nursing community here. She wants to build an environment where people can congregate, have a good time and talk about relevant issues such as why health disparities happen.

Social Determinants & Racial Disparities

Vo explained that nursing students often discuss social determinants in health care, including how systemic racism leads to racial disparities in being able to access and afford medical care. For example, BIPOC patients often receive lower quality treatment because of “systems that don’t allow for us to keep investigating why this person is in pain, or why this person is in the hospital,” Vo said. “It’s very much like, ‘Oh, you’re having these issues. Oh, that’s fine. Everyone has those issues, go home, take Advil, take whatever pain medication and call it okay.’”

BIPOC individuals’ health issues are often dismissed more quickly, whereas white patients may receive a further investigation into their symptoms that leads to diagnosis and treatment.

Vo also spoke to the disparities between nurses of color and white nurses within the profession itself. “It’s very hard to find jobs where it’s acceptable for a BIPOC person to be like, fully into the job, getting full benefits, being allowed to have flexibility within their schedule.”

Nursing Curriculum Critiques

Within the nursing program at St. Kate’s itself, there are other manifestations of marginalization of BIPOC perspectives in the curriculum. Vo said that when learning about skin diseases in one of her classes, “We only learned assessments that were [functional for] light-skinned people [patients] and not anybody who was BIPOC, not anybody who was Black.”

Only one question on that exam was about assessing a BIPOC person, Vo said, and the professor decided to give back that point because students were not actually required to know the answer to that question — the relevant reading material had been optional. However, Vo said it made sense to learn how “any kind of skin disease presents on anyone, not just a white person,” and she expressed that she thought it was a fair question: “We talked about it in lecture. It was on the slide.”

Vo also expressed disapproval for the nursing curriculum’s lack of discussion surrounding BIPOC nurses. While Florence Nightingale is widely discussed for her contributions to modern nursing, “There’s so many other nurses who are BIPOC before her that did almost the same exact thing. … And there’s no recognition for those nurses.”

Although Vo said she had one lecture that centered around a notable BIPOC nurse, she feels “very guilty for not knowing BIPOC nurses, too, that are very influential.” But looking back, she added, there had been “no space” for her to learn that material.

NOC board members strike Spider-Man poses on the marshmallow bride. Credit: Kathy Vo

NOC’s Contributions to the Community

Despite Vo’s description of some lacking aspects of the nursing curriculum, Moira Knepper ‘25 (Nursing), NOC public relations board member, said she has had an “awesome” experience as a student nurse of color at St. Kate’s overall. For Knepper, having a club specifically for nurses of color is important because of the university’s diversity.

While she never met a Hmong person in high school, Knepper said she came to St. Kate’s and discovered, “everyone is literally Hmong, and I feel like that’s super awesome because NOC … celebrates that.”

Knepper explained that her peer mentor’s mentor through the Center for Intercultural Development (formerly Multicultural & International Programs & Services) had been the one to start NOC. Now as a peer mentor herself, Knepper directs her first-year pre-nursing mentees to NOC as a resource that will answer their questions about all-things nursing.

NOC especially encourages underclassmen to attend their meetings, as the Student Nurses Association only accepts members who have already been accepted into the nursing program, meaning first- and second-year pre-nursing students may not be SNA members.

At NOC events, everyone is welcome. “NOC just hopes to see everyone from every grade, every ethnicity, every race,” Vo said, “We just want to see everyone because that’s the whole point of NOC it’s— we’re here to gather.” According to Vo, NOC’s mission is to make a safe place for those who belong to a minority group “to feel comfortable within their situation and feel like they have empowerment and have leadership within their life.”

NOC will host its nursing alumni panel on Monday, Nov. 13 at 4 p.m. in Whitby 321. To stay up to date on NOC events, follow them on Instagram @nursesofcolor_stkates or contact them at nursesofcolor@stkate.edu to join their email list.