From Bedside to Community: A Nurse’s Journey to Public Health
“While I love caring for patients and families in the hospital, I realized that so many health issues have the potential to be prevented from the start, and by the time patients reach us in the hospital, it is hard to change certain outcomes.”
Emerging Leaders: Intern Spotlight
Olivia Smith, RN, MPH
2024 SPHC Marketing & Community Engagement Intern
Championing Women’s Health
The world needs public health now more than ever before. This is something I realized while I was deep in the trenches of the COVID-19 pandemic, working as an inpatient obstetrics registered nurse. The height of the global pandemic occurred about two years into my career as a nurse, and it completely flipped everything I thought I knew about healthcare onto its head. Before COVID, I was starting to recognize and observe how health disparities affected patients on every level; mentally, emotionally, and physically. As a nurse, I witnessed firsthand patients who had limited access to care suffer negative health outcomes when they could have otherwise been prevented or treated. COVID exacerbated these disparities exponentially. BIPOC patients experienced egregious morbidity and mortality, due to implicit bias and structural racism that is embedded in the current healthcare system.
A specific instance that I encountered when caring for a patient truly changed who I am as a person, as well as a healthcare professional. A teenage woman was pregnant and was also in organ failure due to a transplant rejection. A large reason for this was due to her inability to receive proper follow-up care and access her anti-rejection medications. This patient and her unborn baby ended up passing away. This experience left a horrible pit in my stomach. How could the system have failed this young woman so horribly? She had a medical issue that was unavoidable, and not caused by any of her own actions. How did her condition get to the point of no return with no one noticing, or worse, no one caring?
After this instance occurred, I felt a strong calling to help individuals in a different way. While I love caring for patients and families in the hospital, I realized that so many health issues have the potential to be prevented from the start, and by the time patients reach us in the hospital, it is hard to change certain outcomes. Upsettingly, the maternal mortality rate in the U.S. is one of the worst among all developed countries. In 2021, the maternal mortality rate was 32.9, with Black women being over two times more likely to die during childbirth. These egregious problems pushed me to make a change.
I knew I wanted to help individuals become healthier people overall, and I felt like the best way to accomplish this was helping to create change at a higher level. Joining the field of Public Health is the route I decided to take in order to achieve this goal.
Fast forward to May of 2024, I’m in my final weeks of my program and I will soon graduate with my Master’s in Public Health. Over the course of three years, I’ve continued to work full time night-shift as a nurse while completing my coursework. It’s been challenging to say the least, but I’m glad that I’ve continued my bedside career while attending school, as it has served as a constant reminder as to why I’m doing what I’m doing. For the entirety of my six and a half years of nursing, I have been in the Obstetrics field working at one of the busiest labor and delivery units in the country. Throughout my career I have helped to deliver hundreds of babies, been a part of countless emergent situations, and on the other end of the spectrum I’ve also supported women during the darkest days of their lives. With everything I’ve learned, along with all of the challenges facing women’ healthcare in the U.S.,my passion for the protection of women’s health has grown immensely. I know I want to help create ways for all women to have safe, equitable, and comprehensive access to healthcare.
This immersion into the world of public health has opened my eyes to the numerous career paths available, which will aid in creating the changes I want to see in the world. When I entered the program I mistakenly thought that the only way I would be able to help make the most widespread impact was by working on public health policy. While this work is very important, I learned that there are so many other ways to reach people through public health. I’ve learned there are many other viable ways to affect the health of communities. I’ve learned how to create health promotion programs, public health campaigns, and how to utilize marketing to influence positive behavior changes in individuals. While it can be daunting to think about the potential career path ahead of me and all of the opportunities out there, I’m reassured knowing the field of public health is constantly growing and adapting in order to best promote health and wellness for all people.
My public health education is culminating with the experience of being a marketing and community engagement intern for Smart Public Health Consulting. This role has provided me with invaluable opportunities to work alongside excellent public health professionals, as well as observe how the work we do impacts the community in a positive way. Through this practicum I’ve been able to design relevant health information materials, and assist in disseminating them to the community. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to learn and grow through this role, and I feel just a little bit more prepared for the transition from nursing to public health.
