As a young Black nurse, Charlotte Thomas-Hawkins saw it all. Staffers of color denied leadership roles and promotions, and believing that they were being held to higher standards. The automatic assumption that they had a lesser education. Patients assuming that a nurse of color was not really a nurse, or complaining to a manager that they wanted a different nurse.
Years later, nothing seemed to have changed. But this time, Thomas-Hawkins could do something about it. As director of the Center for Health Services Research and Policy at the Rutgers School of Nursing, she led a study showing that combined effects of COVID-19 and workplace racism resulted in a “dual pandemic” that disproportionately affected nurses of color. To read the full story.