For Monica R. McLemore, the work she does to make nursing more equitable is personal. Born prematurely, the early years of her life were marked with difficulty. From leg braces to psoriasis flares, much of her childhood was spent being sick and, consequently, in the care of nurses. She declared her desire to be a nurse — and the first person in her family to work in healthcare — at eight years old, which led her to a nearly three-decade-long career in clinical practice. She earned a bachelor’s degree in nursing from The College of New Jersey, a master’s degree in public health from San Francisco State University, and a doctorate in oncology genomics from the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. McLemore’s work is unified by the understanding that each patient is an expert in their own life, and that a patient’s lived experiences are far more important and insightful than any population-based knowledge. She takes an ecological approach to nursing, meaning that patients are not to be compartmentalized, and nor should their care be. As there is more to life than arbitrary milestones and time points, patients are more than the sum of their highest and lowest moments. Their diverse life experiences have a place within their care experience. Dr. McLemore insists that nurses need an enhanced knowledge base, created through patient-centered studies that see them as entire people.

Dr. McLemore urges nurses to use their individual and collective power to dismantle systemic racism and bias within healthcare, and the resulting health disparities, by meeting each patient where they are. After retiring from active clinical practice in 2019, Dr. McLemore pivoted to research and grounded her work in reproductive justice, a lens to increase understanding of reproductive health and emphasize the autonomy of childbearing individuals. 

Dr. McLemore is the Director of the Manning Price Spratlen Center for Anti-Racism and Equity in Nursing at the University of Washington. Unafraid to ask for help and shake up the status quo, Dr. McLemore demands that everyone establishes their role in health equity, racial equity and justice work. Outside of the University of Washington, Dr. McLemore serves as editor-in-chief of the Health Equity Journal, a board member of the Black Mamas Matter Alliance and Past Chair of the Sexual and Reproductive Health Section of the American Public Health Association.

Dr. McLemore sees the changes taking place at her institution, especially those spurred by the murder of numerous unarmed Black Americans including Breanna Taylor and George Floyd, as resonant of how nursing is accountable to more than just nursing. She calls nursing “shared work,” emphasizing that nurses are well suited to fix the insidious problem of racism within the profession.