School Notes: School of Nursing
September/October 2020

An action plan against racism

On June 18, YSN shared its Commitment to Anti-Racism, an initial action plan. The action items include reviews of curricula and research, planning for anti-racism education, development of anti-racism metrics as evaluation criteria in course, faculty, and preceptor evaluations, and contributing to broader anti-racism policy change, among other goals. This document represents the founding ethos of the school: to engage in education, practice, and scholarship that addresses the clinical, socioeconomic, and environmental issues—including racism—that affect the health of people and the planet. To read the full document, visit nursing.yale.edu.

Dean discusses pandemic inequities

In July, YSN associate dean for global affairs and planetary health LaRon E. Nelson participated in a panel during the International AIDS Society COVID-19 Conference, a virtual meeting that also featured Dr. Anthony Fauci, Dr. Deborah Birx, and Bill Gates. During the presentation “Anti-black racism and COVID-19 inequities: explaining the system, exposing the set-up, and exploring the solutions,” Nelson explained how race is a social construct and that the idea of race as a scientifically valid biological taxonomy, in the era of the Human Genome Project among other data, has been thoroughly discredited. “The moral conscience of the world has been awakened by the COVID-19 pandemic, and it is an opportunity to restructure society to protect all human life and the ecosystems that sustain it, against the global pandemic threats of racism and COVID-19,” he said.

YSN launches COVID-19 toolkit

In an effort to assist frontline providers fighting the COVID-19 pandemic in low-resource environments, YSN launched the COVID-19 Toolkit during the summer. The site includes resources that are helpful to both health professionals and to members of the general public, covering topics from protocols for proning (turning patients for better respiration) to ethical frameworks for care decisions, to face mask fabrication, to evidence-based communication to dispel common COVID-19 myths. Many materials are available in a variety of languages. To access the toolkit, visit cnt.yale.edu.