Submitted by Dr. Nicole Barnett, ACNL DEI Committee Member
On October 1, 2022, I had the unique pleasure of interviewing Shirley Steinback Hawthrone. I worked on her team when she was the Medical Group Administrator for the Kaiser Permanente East Bay service area, and I remained on her team until her retirement in 2016. When I think about leaders that not only have a proven track record of performance, but a clear dedication to the profession of nursing and to the up-lifting of others, few names rival hers.
Tell us a bit about your background.
I was born and raised in Fresno, CA. My father was a pastor and my mother was a stay at home Mom. I am the only girl of five children and we lived in the Black community of Fresno at the time. My growing up was overall positive. We had our church family and our neighborhood behind us. We played outside and had a sense of community. Being raised in the church prepared me for leadership in many ways. I learned to speak in front of a group, work as a team such as singing in the choir or serving our community. It gave me a sense of self and built my courage early on.
How did you know that you wanted to enter the nursing profession?
I attended San Jose State University with the support of an equal opportunity program. While I was thankful for the financial support to attend college, it was quite a culture shock from the community that I grew up with in Fresno. My inspiration to study the healing profession really came from my father. Being a pastor, he would visit the sick and shut in and I would often accompany him. I would see him minister through his presence, his listening and his prayers. I saw the impact that it had on people and on their families and I wanted to find a way to do the same for people that were suffering due to illness. When he later became ill due to stomach cancer, I saw my mother care for him and so I learned so much about healing presence from her as well. Even as a young girl, I learned the power of presence, holding a hand, sharing a word of encouragement. It helped me to learn the foundations of how to take care of others. Later, when I was old enough, I started to volunteer at the local hospital. We were called “Candy Stripers” back them because of the striped pinafore that we wore as our uniform. It helped me to become comfortable in a hospital environment and apply everything that I had learned about healing to the patients that I served. That experience just sealed it for me, I knew that I wanted to be a nurse, and I also knew that my path was already divinely chosen for me and I felt comfortable walking into it.
Did you experience any discrimination while in nursing school at San Jose State?
Well, first of all, there were so few Blacks on campus, especially in nursing, that I could count them on one hand. One day in clinical, I was assigned to AM care for a patient. Back then, we still did full AM care, with a head to toe bed bath, oral care and all. I went in with my instructor, introduced myself to the patient, explained that I would be providing AM care and introduced my instructor. The patient then objected to having me care for her and called me a name I prefer not to repeat. At the time, I heard a lot on the news about racism and protests, but I had been raised in a safe, racially congruent, supportive community. This was the first time that I was directly confronted with hateful speech fueled by racism. So I said to myself that I am going to step out and speak with my instructor. When I asked her about the incident she calmly advised, “This is your patient and you are going to take care of her. This is not the last time that you will encounter people like this woman.” My instructor was a military trained nurse who was very disciplined. Being raised in a disciplined household, her teaching style was familiar and encouraging for me. But I did not expect this response, however, though I appreciate it now, because she was right. It is in these moments that we have an opportunity to choose how we respond, because these are opportunities not to just change minds but to change hearts. I hope to change hearts in everything that I do. And my instructor was correct - there would be many more times when I would encounter others like this woman, as patients, as co-workers, and as leaders in my career.
Your nursing career transects the height of the Civil Rights Movement. Tell us about how events on the national stage impacted your early years as a nurse.
I was in high school when MLK was assassinated, and our teachers did their best to help us process our grief, our anger and our confusion. Just a few months later, we learned of the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. While the deaths of Medgar Evers, JFK and Malcom X happened when I was younger, these recent assassinations impacted me deeply. By the time that I entered college at San Jose State University, I found myself interacting with other students that were politically aware, impacted by national events and wanting to support positive change within our areas of influence. In fact, the Black Panthers were active on our campus and on other college campuses as well. It was refreshing and enlightening to partake in their socio-political educational program. Many of us even started changing our hair and our style of dress on campus to signify our solidarity with the movement. It was in my college years that I first wore an Afro and fatigues! The more I learned about the plight of the Black community from the Black Panthers, I knew that the larger world was not the same as the protective Black community that I had grown up with in Fresno. I was also in college when John Carlos and Tommie Evans ran in the Olympics and raised the Black Power fist! All of this fueled my determination to learn and to explore my own militancy. We were young, and we wanted change! Nursing is a perfect platform for change, because health is so closely tied to human rights. It all came together for me in college and was aligned with how I was raised, and what I believed in.
What advice would you offer for current nursing leaders, especially leaders of color?
Be confident in who you are, and in your excellent competence as a registered nurse. Hold on to your strength of character and maintain your commitment to emotional intelligence and civility even when others struggle to do the same. Your patients and your community are counting on you!
