Leading with Purpose: Preparing a New Generation of Nurses to Advance Equity and Serve Underserved Populations
From an early age, Latisha Hayes-Gaines experienced the challenges that people of color often face when trying to access healthcare in the United States. When she was diagnosed with lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease, she sought treatment and medication to manage her symptoms.
“About six months later, I became pregnant, and while I sought prenatal care, no one told me to stop taking the medication,” Hayes-Gaines said. The medication was harmful to her unborn child, and she ultimately lostthe pregnancy.
A nurse who cared for her during that time provided both emotional support and critical education about the medication, helping her heal and profoundly shaping her future.
“That tragedy, and that nurse’s compassion, inspired me to go into nursing education because I didn’t want anyone else to feel the way I had felt,” Hayes-Gaines said.
A Camden native, Hayes-Gaines earned both her bachelor’s and doctoral degrees in nursing from Rutgers University–Camden. She is now an assistant teaching professor and the program director for pre-licensure programs at Rutgers School of Nursing–Camden. With over 15 years of experience in clinical and academic nursing, she has spent much of her career educating nursing students and working in correctional facilities across New Jersey and Georgia.
In both the classroom and clinical settings, Hayes-Gaines continues to confront the same health disparities she experienced as a young woman – inequities that remain deeply entrenched today. According to theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, while Black Americans overall face higher rates of hypertension, stroke, and diabetes.
Data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services show that communities of color are more likely to encounter barriers such as lack of a usual source of care, delayed treatment due to cost, and implicit bias in clinical settings. These inequities illustrate how structural, economic, and systemic factors continue to determine who receives timely, high-quality care – and who does not.
“Camden is a hub for healthcare, but many residents either don’t have insurance or are underinsured, so they cannot access resources in their own city,” Hayes-Gaines said. “As a result, many turn to public clinics,which are often overworked and understaffed, so things inevitably get missed. The playing field is not equal,and that leads to continued disparities and different outcomes among populations.”
Even when people of color can access care, persistent misconceptions, such as false beliefs about higher pain tolerance, assumptions about noncompliance, or skepticism when a patient requests a specific medication, affect how symptoms are assessed and treated. This often leads to delayed diagnoses or undertreatment.
Moreover, decades of medical research have historically underrepresented Black and Brown populations in clinical trials, limiting the applicability of findings and leaving gaps in understanding how diseases, medications, and treatments affect diverse communities.
Developing and supporting young nurses of color is one of the most direct ways Hayes-Gaines works to address these gaps.
“Being a person of color in healthcare helps bring relatability to the patient-caregiver relationship,” she said.“Many of us have experienced overt or subtle racism, and because of that, we can advocate for patients of color, call out discrimination when we see it, and ultimately provide a higher level of care.”
For Hayes-Gaines, the ability to drive change through education and advocacy while improving health outcomes across all populations affirms that this is the work she was meant to pursue.
“The fact that I can not only educate but advocate for people who look like me – some who lived in the same neighborhood where I grew up with my mom – solidifies that I am where I’m supposed to be, doing what I’m supposed to do,” she said.
