Wheelchair doesn’t stop nurse as she ministers to prisoners

[NRSKarenRN, BSN, RN]

Found article at Philadelphia Inquirer:

Wheelchair doesn't stop nurse as she ministers to prisoners

Josh Shaffer, The News & Observer (Raleigh, N.C.)

Posted: Saturday, March 28, 2015, 2:15 AM

RALEIGH, N.C. — Latisha Anderson calls herself an RN on wheels,” a healer who uses a wheelchair, a caretaker who rolls among the sick.

Skeptics told her she would never make it as a paraplegic nurse — turning patients, drawing blood and navigating the fast-moving stress of a hospital without a working set of legs.

But Anderson surprised them. She finished nursing school. She found work in psychiatric units, a veterans hospital and a senior center. She earned her graduate degree online and drove to Arizona by herself, collecting her diploma while seated in her manual ultra-light chair.

Anderson has started work at Central Prison in Raleigh. It wasn't a smooth process.

The prison hired her sight unseen through a nursing agency. It sent her orientation materials by email, complete with a dress code and instructions for trimming her fingernails. But when she showed up March 2, expecting to perform the sort of psychiatric care she had already handled on other jobs, she got sent quickly home.

They said, ‘We can't use you,'” she said.

So Anderson filed a complaint with the governor's office. It's case No. 13874. She also called me and explained her life's struggles. Then she sent out a stream of emails, explaining that she works hard and desperately needs income to avoid living in a shelter.

So the prison called her back: Start Monday.

If I have to be Harriet Tubman, so be it,” Anderson said. But disabled people do have a place in this world, and I will keep running my mouth.”...

...She might not look like the nurses you've had. She carries a bullet-wound scar on her neck, a reminder of the stray-bullet injury that claimed her legs at age 17...

Her next inspiration came all the way from Hawaii, via a newspaper article in the Honolulu Advertiser. There, she found out about Barry McKeown, a former surfer paralyzed in a car crash. From his chair, he managed a nursing career that required work in the intensive care unit, where he had once saved a patient's life with CPR. Anderson wrote to him, and he told her, All you need is a stand-up wheelchair.”

When Anderson finished at ECU with a 3.5 GPA, the nursing school magazine wrote a long feature about her success, quoting professors who had never before taught a student who used a wheelchair.

She had to do the same things that other students did,” said Dr. Donna Roberson. She had to take CPR, turn patients and hang intravenous fluids. With her upper-body strength, she did it better than, say, some ‘able-bodied' persons.”

Anderson got the same treatment from Grand Canyon University, the online school that featured her in its magazine with several large photographs.

I think the fact that she's had a lot of negativity thrown at her has sort of done the opposite,” said Samantha Chacon, a nursing practicum specialist. I would never have thought her disability would ever prevent her from doing an amazing job. She didn't let it stop her.”...

[NurseGirl525, ASN, RN]

A very inspiring story. Glad to see someone that can overcome like that. Kudos to her!!!