Focus on Women's Health Article

Pam Chwedyk
Senior Editor/Editorial Manager
Minority Nurse Magazine

Serving Where the Need is Greatest

The latest U.S. Census figures reveal that one out of four Americans is non-Caucasian-yet according to the Health Resources and Services Administration's 2000 National Sample Survey of Registered Nurses, only 13.4% of the nation's RNs are racial or ethnic minorities. Clearly, the nursing profession's need to keep pace with America's dramatically growing cultural diversity is an issue of critical concern. Minority Nurse reports on efforts to close this health care gap, covering everything from programs designed to recruit more minorities into nursing school to career opportunities in specialty areas of nursing where there is an urgent need for more nurses of color who can provide culturally sensitive care to underserved minority populations.

While attending the National Association of Hispanic Nurses' 2000 Annual Conference in Washington, D.C., I noticed that a presentation on careers in the U.S. Public Health Service's Commissioned Corps generated tremendous interest from the audience. Nurses were eagerly lining up to get more information about this exciting career alternative that enables them to truly make a difference by bringing quality health care to some of the world's neediest, most medically isolated communities.

The U.S. Public Health Service has been called "one of the federal government's best-kept secrets" because there is so little public awareness of its programs. Wanting to share this "secret" with our readers, I assigned the article to an excellent free-lance writer, Barbara Marquand. She did an outstanding job of portraying how Commissioned Corps nurses who are willing to "boldly go where no one else will serve" proudly enjoy one of the most personally rewarding careers the nursing profession has to offer.

Besides Barbara, Minority Nurse would also like to thank all of the U.S. Public Health Service nurses who so vividly shared their experiences in this article-including the Office on Women's Health's own Acting Deputy Director, Francess Page, R.N., B.S.N., M.P.H.

In the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks, one sentence in this piece strikes me as particularly timely: "In addition to their regular jobs working for government health agencies, nurses in the Commissioned Corps also can be mobilized in time of war or national and international emergencies." We are proud to share this article at a time when the need for nurses who are willing to serve where the need is greatest is more imperative than ever.

The complete article, Serving Where Need is Greatest is available here, on the Minority Nurse web site.

To read other articles recently published in Minority Nurse, visit their Web site at http://www.minoritynurse.com/features/index.html. 

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