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Temwa Mzumara knows firsthand what it feels like to watch helplessly as a loved one fights to stay alive. In fact, experiencing that level of fear and vulnerability is what inspired her to become a nurse anesthetist. She wanted to be involved in the process of not only keeping critically ill people alive, but offering them peace in the midst of the unknown.
"I want to, in the minutes before taking the patient into surgery, develop a trusting and therapeutic relationship and help instill hope," said Mzumara. Especially now, with Covid restrictions, loved ones are unable to be at the side of a patient heading to surgery which makes the ability to understand and quiet her patients' fears such an important part of what she does.
Temwa | Heroes Behind the Masks presented by CeraVe www.youtube.com
Dedicated to making a difference in the lives of her patients, Nurse Mzumara is one of the four nurses featured in Heroes Behind the Masks, a digital content series by CeraVe® that honors nurses who go above and beyond to provide safe and quality care to their patients and communities.
When she isn't working in an official capacity at the hospital, Nurse Mzumara devotes her time to a local ministry known as SALT (Service And Love Together). While there are multiple arms of the organization, Mzumara works most closely with their Hospital Ministry. Pre-Covid, groups of hospital volunteers visited patients to lift their spirits with singing and encouragement. However, since that's on hold for now, they've found other ways to help meet the needs of the central Florida community—like focusing on the growing homeless population. SALT's Homeless Ministry has created trailers that provide the community with food, clothing, and access to showers, and laundry, all of which help those experiencing homelessness get back on their feet.
"My faith is what drives me to be the best person I can be and drives my passion in life to help people in need," said Mzumara. She says she truly loves people and tries to see the best in everyone she meets because you never know what someone else might be going through.
"When I am with my patients, I strive to bring them hope and healing...gaining that trust from them and being appreciated for what I do is invaluable. Nursing is more than just a job. It's a calling," said Mzumara.
Nurses like Mzumara are what inspired CeraVe® to launch the Heroes Behind the Masks campaign.
"While CeraVe® has long appreciated and supported the invaluable work of the medical community, their service and commitment to their communities has never been more profound or worthy of recognition," said Jaclyn Marrone, Vice President of Marketing for CeraVe®. "We're thankful to all nurses everywhere for their unparalleled selflessness and compassion."
Developed with dermatologists, CeraVe® is a brand rooted in the medical community and committed to supporting healthcare professionals. As part of its commitment to nurses, CeraVe® is also a proud sponsor of the ANA Enterprise and their Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation™ initiative, a movement designed to transform the health of the nation by improving the health of the nation's 4.2 million registered nurses. Through the initiative, ANA is connecting and engaging with nurses to inspire them to take action in five key areas: activity, sleep, nutrition, quality of life and safety.
Additionally, over the past year, CeraVe® has donated more than 500,000 products to hospitals to help provide therapeutic skincare relief to healthcare workers and is continuing the product donation efforts. Nurses looking to engage with the brand and learn more about these initiatives can join the Shift Change: Nurse Essentials Facebook group, an online community hosted by CeraVe® where nurses come together for personal and professional empowerment.
To see more stories about nurse heroes, visit https://www.heroesbehindthemasks.com/.
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A new bill passed in Tennessee and signed into law by Governor Bill Lee on Monday may be less blatantly anti-transgender than bathroom bills attempting to ban transgender people from using the restroom that most closely aligns with their gender, but that doesn't mean it actually makes sense.
House Bill 1182 requires businesses that welcome transgender people to use the bathroom of their choice to post a sign warning people of their policy. The details of the sign are very specific: It must be at least eight inches high and six inches wide. The top one-third of the sign must read "NOTICE" in yellow text over a red background. And in the other two-thirds it must read, in boldface, block letters, the following statement: "THIS FACILITY MAINTAINS A POLICY OF ALLOWING THE USE OF RESTROOMS BY EITHER BIOLOGICAL SEX, REGARDLESS OF THE DESIGNATION ON THE RESTROOM."
"We want a look that evokes both the moral panic of the present and the legacy of institutionalized prejudice many… https://t.co/P7Ap8vKqCX— Gillian Branstetter (@Gillian Branstetter)1621382533.0
Human Rights Campaign President Alphonso David said in a statement that Tennessee's bill rolls back the clock on equality and is harmful to transgender Tennesseans.
"Denying transgender people the ability to access a bathroom consistent with their gender identity is degrading and dehumanizing — and can have real health and safety consequences," wrote David.
Here's the thing: Transgender people have been using the bathroom that aligns with their gender without most of us even noticing. This is simply a solution in search of a problem.
Bathroom bills are purportedly designed to protect people from predators (presumably male predators who could pretend to be trans to use the women's room) but there are two big problems with that:
1) States that have laws protecting trans people's rights to using the bathroom of their choice have not seen any kind of increase in bathroom predator issues. A 2014 report from Media Matters found that experts from 12 states with anti-discrimination laws protecting transgender people's right to use gender-aligned bathrooms—some of those laws more than a decade old at the time—found no issues stemming from transgender people peeing where they want. These experts include law enforcement officials, government employees, and advocates for victims of sexual assault, and they overwhelmingly concurred that there is no basis for the fear behind anti-trans bathroom bills.
2) If predatory behavior in a bathroom is truly the concern, making transgender people use the restroom that aligns with their genitals at birth would actually make it easier, not harder, for male predators to sneak into women's bathrooms. The logic some people seem to be missing in their push to make people use the bathroom of their assigned sex at birth is that most transgender people's appearance more closely aligns with their gender identity, not their sex at birth. Most trans men present as men. Most trans women present as women. Forcing a trans man to use the women's bathroom and vice versa means making people who are visually the opposite sex into male and female bathrooms.
To illustrate this point, here are some transgender individuals who some people think should have to use the restroom opposite of the gender they appear.
This is fitness coach Cody Harmon, who is a trans man. Anyone who thinks he should be forced to use a women's bathroom is not thinking this through.
Aryan Pasha is a bodybuilder and also a trans man. Should he have to use the women's bathroom because his biological sex at birth was female?
And on the flip side, do you want to tell this woman she has to use the men's room?
How about her? If you walked into the men's room and saw her there, wouldn't you assume she was in the "wrong" bathroom?
People who want trans folks to use the bathroom of their assigned/biological sex at birth are the same people who would throw a fit if they saw trans people actually use those bathrooms. Because what they're wanting is for trans men to use women's bathrooms and vice versa, thereby putting men in women's bathrooms. Because the bathroom use complaints simply don't make logical sense.
Not all transgender people fully transition, of course, and trans people may be in various stages of transition, but the fact remains that most trans people do present as their gender and feel more comfortable (and safe) using the restroom accordingly. (There are also non-binary trans people who may present as male one day and female another, or who may appear totally androgynous. The point being is you can't judge a transgender person based on their appearance.)
The idea that someone might pretend to be trans to be able to enter a women's restroom as a man isn't backed up by reality, and even if someone did do that, it wouldn't be transgender people's fault. There's no reason to punish transgender people for what a predator might try to do.
Bills like the Tennessee bathroom sign one are designed to make transgender people feel like they shouldn't exist. But they do exist. They always have, and they've been using the same bathrooms as cisgender people this whole time. They are also designed to arouse suspicion about trans people, which is patently unfair. People just want to pee and poo in peace. Truly. When you know transgender people personally, it's easier to understand how utterly ridiculous these bathroom laws are.
You don't have to understand someone's identity to accept them for who they are. You don't have to personally relate to someone's story to show them basic respect. These kinds of laws are unnecessary and hurtful, and if your lawmakers are pushing for such legislation, ask them to stop. Urge your Senators to pass the Equality Act already passed by the House. And contact your state representatives and ask them to support trans people's right to be themselves.
Everyone deserves at least that much.
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Nicole Abate, a Registered Medical-Surgical Nurse living in New Mexico, starts her workday around 5:00 a.m. During her 20-minute drive to work, she gets to watch the sun rise over the Sandia Mountains as she sips her coffee.
"It's one of my favorite things to do," said Nurse Abate. "A lot of us need a little calm before the storm."
Nicole | Heroes Behind the Masks Presented by CeraVe youtu.be
In March 2020, after a fairly quiet start to the year, Nurse Abate's unit became the official COVID unit for her hospital. "It went full force after that," she says. Abate was afraid, overwhelmed with uncertainty, never knowing what was next on the wild roller coaster in this new territory, "just when you think ...we know exactly what we're doing, boom, something else hits so you adapt… that's part of nursing too." Abate faced her responsibilities courageously and with grace, as she always does, making life a little better for patients and their families "Thank you for taking care of my father," reads one recent letter from a patient's family. "You were kind, attentive and strong and we are truly grateful."
Nurses are accustomed to losing patients—it's part of the job. The difference for Nurse Abate during the pandemic was watching her patients go through it alone. That's what hit her hardest and prompted her to bring an iPad into a patient's room so that the family could say their goodbyes via FaceTime before the patient passed away. "I don't think I have a greater honor than to be the person to hold someone's hand while they take their last breath," she says.
"Nursing can be a traumatic field to work in," says Wendy Mason, PhD, a faculty member in the School of Nursing at Purdue University Global. "Nurses are exposed to pain and suffering and trauma, and we are often traumatized and not even realize it. If we aren't caring for ourselves, we can't care for others."
Self-care is important for workers in every field, but especially for nurses, who spend their working hours serving the needs of others. A recent study found that self-care reduces stress, replenishes a nurse's capacity to provide compassion and empathy, and as a result, improves the overall quality of care. But nurses aren't always very good at making themselves a priority.
Nurse Abate says that because she wasn't taught the importance of self-care early on in life, learning how to put herself first has always been a struggle. "As I've grown older, I realized it's imperative," said Abate.
"I'm stressed until I finally walk in the door and my dogs come up and greet me … it's hard with COVID because you come home and it's all over the news and you just can't escape it," said Nurse Abate. "It's very hard work but it's the most rewarding work that I've ever done in my life."
Abate feels she's become more resilient over the past year and a half, finding other ways to ground herself like taking walks, reading, and visiting her parents from a safe distance. While she's managed to make the best of a terrible situation, she's looking forward to getting back to her normal self-care routines of monthly massages, going to the gym with friends, and antiquing. After all, even nurse heroes need a little downtime.
CeraVe® is a brand rooted in the medical community and committed to supporting healthcare professionals. As part of its commitment to nurses, CeraVe® is also a proud sponsor of the ANA Enterprise and their Healthy Nurse, Healthy Nation™ initiative, a movement designed to transform the health of the nation by improving the health of the nation's 4.2 million registered nurses. Through the initiative, ANA is connecting and engaging with nurses to inspire them to take action in five key areas: activity, sleep, nutrition, quality of life and safety.
Additionally, over the past year, CeraVe® has donated more than 500,000 products to hospitals to help provide therapeutic skincare relief to healthcare workers and is continuing the product donation efforts. Nurses looking to engage with the brand and learn more about these initiatives can join the Shift Change: Nurse Essentials Facebook group, an online community hosted by CeraVe® where nurses come together for personal and professional empowerment.
To see more stories about nurse heroes, visit https://www.heroesbehindthemasks.com/.
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