This nurse wanted to diversify the CRNA profession. She's now mentored more than 700 nurses

When Wallena Gould, EdD, CRNA, FADLN, FAANA, FAAN was studying to be a certified registered nurse anesthetist, she was struck by how few Black students were in her program, even in the racially-diverse city of Philadelphia.?

She decided to explore the issue for a poster presentation, and reached out to the American Association of Nurse Anesthesiology (AANA) for data. Her findings confirmed her suspicions: of 37,000 CRNAs, only 6% were CRNAs of color. The numbers weren’t much better in Philadelphia, where at the time more than 40% of residents were Black.?

“I ended up getting an A for the poster,” she told me. “But I just felt that there was something not right about it, and I wanted to know if anybody was doing anything about it.”

Gould is now the founder and CEO of the Diversity in Nurse Anesthesia Mentorship Program, which aims to increase the number of Black and Hispanic CRNAs – at the bedside, in academia and in specialty areas like pain management.?

The program – which started nearly two decades ago and was born out of casual conversations Gould would hold with other students – is now a national non-profit and last year was recognized under the American Academy of Nursing ’s Edge Runners program.?

Gould became a fellow of the AAN in 2015 – the first CRNA of color to earn that distinction.

She’s mentored more than 700 nurses, who are now paying it forward and volunteering with the group, fostering a pipeline of talent. And those efforts could have real-world implications for patients – for example, Black patients have long been under-treated for pain because of racial bias and false beliefs about biological differences.

It’s worth pointing out that the diversity problem isn’t just in advanced-practice nursing. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association last week found that medical students are increasingly coming from wealthier families, while the share of both applicants and students from lower-income households has been decreasing.?

As part of Nurses Month, I chatted with Gould about how her idea for a mentorship program took shape, the biggest barriers to training more CRNAs of color and where her focus is next.

And tell me: How can medical and nursing schools better reflect the patient populations they’ll ultimately serve? If you were the first in your family to become a healthcare professional, who guided you through that process?

The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity.

LinkedIn News: What happened after your poster presentation?

Gould: I asked one of the program directors at University of Pennsylvania [about whether anyone was working to address the racial disparity in CRNA programs]. He told me that I needed to go to Boston for our national meeting.

That very first day, I met for the very first time Goldie Brangman in the hotel. She was sitting down in the main lobby and she had a cane. There was a long line of CRNAs waiting to shake her hand. I didn’t know who she was and I made the inquiry. They said that she was the first and only Black president of the American Association of Nurse Anesthetists from 1973 to 1974. And she also co-founded the school of anesthesia at Harlem Hospital. I didn't know that; no one even mentioned her name [at my school.] So I got on line and introduced myself.

As a result of meeting her, that's where I found my purpose, that I needed to do more. And I didn't know what that meant, especially being a nurse anesthesia student with small children.

LinkedIn News: How did you build a mentorship program?

Gould: For some reason, by word of mouth – and this was 2002 or 2003, there was no social media at the time – many nurses of color in the Philadelphia area found out that I was sharing information about [becoming a CRNA]: the admission process, the rigors of the program, how to balance family and finances, things like that.

Nurses would come to my home and we would have a dinner chat over pizza. A lot of them were first generation college graduates; they were motivated but they just needed proper direction, that's all. When I graduated from school in 2004, I wanted to take it up a level. I went to the program director at Villanova University in Philadelphia and I asked her for space so we could have more nurses come to this event. Again by word of mouth, this time nurses came from Philadelphia, New York, Maryland and the DC area.

We started to do more regional events; I was going out to the West Coast … to Florida. It wasn't until 2008 or 2009 that I became a nonprofit organization. In 2010, I went back to school for my doctorate; my dissertation was on the professional socialization of underrepresented minorities in nursing. I knew that if we give information prior to them even exploring and navigating the nurse anesthesia admission process, they have more of a chance of being accepted and also they have mentoring opportunities too.?

LinkedIn News: How do you assess impact?

Gould: Over 710 nurse nurses of color that came through our diversity CRNA events were able to matriculate into 92 nurse anesthesia programs.?

We'll go to [historically Black colleges and universities as well as institutions that serve Hispanic populations] and we speak to nursing students. Again, many of them are first generation college students. They're being introduced to nurse anesthesia by someone who looks just like them. They have that early socialization into the profession way before they’re even thinking about applying.?

LinkedIn News: What are the biggest barriers to recruiting more CRNAs of color?

Gould: One of the barriers that exists today is that [nurse anesthesia programs require] the GRE exam in order to apply. Of the 128 nurse anesthesia programs, 65 actually eliminated it, but other programs still have it. The programs that have that as a condition are the less racially diverse programs. By eliminating that GRE exam, it only expands the amount of people that can actually come and at least interview.

The nurse anesthesia programs also need to be more diversified when it comes to faculty of color.

What we have done specifically is not just changed the face of nurse anesthesia, but also the culture of nurse anesthesia and that's important.

LinkedIn News: What are your priorities these days for continuing to drive this initiative forward?

Gould: For the future, it's not just diversifying the nurse anesthesia profession, but my main focus now for the next five to eight years is to increase the number of PhD researchers of color.?

When it comes to pain management fellows, our main focus now is trying to get CRNA's in these critical areas where they are much needed, much more needed than anywhere else in the profession. So another initiative is to increase faculty of color in those programs.