WesternU nursing student helps secure $1.24 million grant for NAHN to recruit more Hispanic nurses

Western University of Health Sciences College of Graduate Nursing student Angelica Millan is the principal investigator of a $1.24 million grant to increase the number of Hispanic nurses nationwide.

The National Association of Hispanic Nurses (NAHN) received a five-year, $1.24 million Science Education Partnership Award grant from the National Institutes of Health to support its Hispanic Role Models in Health Careers program.

The program, a collaborative project with the Hispanic Communications Network, addresses the need for cultural and linguistic diversity among health care professionals by recruiting and interviewing bilingual role models and arranging to broadcast those interviews. The project aims to inform Spanish-speakers about the range of health careers open to them through proper education, and to inspire them to imagine themselves in health care careers.

Millan is the Principal Investigator of the Hispanic Role Models in Health Careers, and applied for the grant while serving as NAHN president in 2010-12. She is starting her second year as a WesternU Doctor of Nursing Practice student and serves as the nursing director for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Children’s Medical Services.

NAHN will produce Spanish-language commercials to be broadcast on the Hispanic Communications Network. Nurses will talk about their profession and discuss the barriers they overcame in their careers. A diverse group will be interviewed, from staff nurses to nurse practitioners to administrators.

They plan to produce 14 interviews this year, and 48 total during the five-year grant period. They will also post video interviews on the NAHN website and publish interviews in a weekly newspaper.

In addition to national media outreach, a number of bilingual online resources for health career aspirants will be established, including an extensive database of volunteer professionals who have said “”