HIV Clinic Personnel Should Be as Diverse as Communities They Serve. But How?
Diversity can be a complex concept. Beyond mere tokenism, diversity is about more than just variation based on traits like race, gender, class or sexual orientation. It's more a philosophy than a checklist.
And while building a diverse workplace may seem simple on the surface -- don't just hire from the same demographic of people every time! -- many clinics find it challenging to put that philosophy into practice.
TheBodyPro asked attendees at the 2019 Association of Nurses in AIDS Care conference (ANAC 2019) in Portland, Oregon, to weigh in on how clinics can best ensure that the makeup of their staff mirrors the people they serve.
Transcripts have been lightly edited for clarity.
Natalie Leblanc, Ph.D., M.P.H., RN
Leblanc is an assistant professor at the University of Rochester School of Nursing in Rochester, New York.
What first comes to mind is how they are defining diversity. Sometimes it's race based. Sometimes it's where people are coming from. Sometimes it's location and culture. So I think it's important to pay attention to where you are, where you are located, and what are the goals that you are trying to achieve. I think also drawing on the community … [creating a] community advisory board, [having] a board of directors that includes members of the surrounding community, and engaging the non-clinical community for some insights.
You have agencies or settings that are trying to diversify the landscape and may have to think about how they do recruitment. There are people who are out here who are more than qualified to work in clinical settings, so they have to be recruited in the right way.
Helena Addison, M.S.N., RN
Addison is a Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I think that definitely goes beyond hiring different people. A big part of that is retaining people and making sure that when you bring people in, it's a supportive environment, so that people don't leave.
Martez Smith, L.M.S.W.
Smith is a Ph.D. student at the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York.
We know in New York City, particularly in the ballroom scene, there are a lot of folks who work in health care settings. You employ people from the demographics that need the most help, that need the most services. If you have a certain target population, empower those people to come on board to carry out that work.
Lucy Bradley-Springer, Ph.D., RN, ACRN, FAAN
Bradley-Springer is an associate professor emerita at the University of Colorado Denver and the editor-in-chief of the Journal of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.
That's difficult, because a lot of those staff people have to have advanced degrees, and we're not very good at recruiting people into nursing and medicine and [laboratory science] who come from diverse backgrounds, but we're working hard on it.
The best way to make sure that the diversity is there is to have peer leaders and peer counselors, people who have personal experience and know what it's really like. And we have a better chance of getting diverse workers in that process. As that works better and better, we can do a better job of recruiting people into nursing school and medical school.
The other thing is getting people interested in HIV. We may have African-American, Latino and Muslim doctors and nurses out there, but they may be interested in cardiology [for example]. So there's two things that we have to worry about.
Once you find them, as the employer, you need to provide opportunities for them to go to school so that they do have some of those degrees that allow them to earn more money and reach more people that look like them.
Shonta Smith
Smith is a nurse at the University of Maryland Institute of Human Virology's THRIVE Program in Baltimore, Maryland.
Diversity is not just color. It's attitudes, it's beliefs, it's education, it's personal experiences. And there's also where you've grown up, how you were raised. Of course you're not going to know that when you interview someone.
What we do, how we select individuals to meet the diversity of our clients, is that we have an in-depth interview session. We include individuals from every service we provide in our clinic, so that we can ultimately make the right decision for our clients.
Elizabeth Munoz, B.S.N.
Munoz is a transitional care coordinator with Cooper University Health Care's Early Intervention Program in Camden, New Jersey.
My way to go about it is accepting the person for what they are. A [person is a] human being despite their color, race or religion. And make sure that the staff leaves their prejudices at the door.
Laura Remy, M.P.H., RN
Remy is a Ph.D. student at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri.
We're all about creating these genuine relationships, not transactions. I know I'm white, and [when] I go to somebody who is a black MSM [man who has sex with men], I need to engage them on a level that's genuine. Meeting people where they are. Going into the communities. I call them peer experts. I've been told a lot that I'm white. Using our privilege: coming from a place of privilege, understanding I have that privilege, and using it to bring those who don't up with me.
