Wallena Gould, EdD, CRNA, FAANA, FAAN, was recently appointed to serve as Vice Chair of the American Academy of Nursing’s Diversity & Inclusivity Committee. 
In 2015, Gould—who’s the founder and Chief Executive Officer of the Diversity in Nurse Anesthesia Mentorship Program—was the first CRNA of color to be inducted as a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. She has served on the Diversity & Inclusivity Committee for the past two years, and this is her first year as Vice Chair. Gould said she is the first CRNA the American Academy of Nursing has had on the Diversity & Inclusivity Committee, and she’s the first CRNA to assume the position of Vice Chair.
The purpose of the D&I Committee is to recommend strategies and goals for increasing diversity and inclusivity within the Academy and its leadership bodies.
“The Academy has a 2021 to 2024 strategic plan, and in that plan, equity, diversity, and inclusivity is the first value,” Gould said. “We make sure as a committee that we advance critical conversations on health equity to the membership. That also includes racism, and the impact of racism when it comes to nursing.”
She said the Academy is charged with advancing and operationalizing diversity, equity, and inclusivity throughout the whole year. “We’re talking to and influencing deans of schools of nursing, nursing faculty, and influential nursing leaders within the Academy. We’re trying to make sure that [DEI] is infused throughout the year, where we’re talking about health equity and identifying health disparities.”
The committee has joined efforts with the American Nurses Association on conversations to end racism in nursing as well, Gould said.
“Just this past year, one of the committee members hosted a national bystander training workshop on how to respond to racism, discrimination, and microaggressions,” she said, adding that she shared the event in social media forums and the Diversity CRNA Newsletter, inviting nurse anesthesia program directors and faculty to the training session.
Gould said, “Unfortunately, sometimes nurse anesthesia students of color encounter microaggressions in their clinical training, and because of the work that we’re doing with the Academy, we can have a serious dialogue about how to respond and change policy on these type of situations.”
As part of her work on the committee, Gould said she’s had an opportunity to speak about Black maternal mortality at state association and AANA conferences, bringing greater awareness to issues of health equity and reducing health disparities. She’s also spoken about the need for more CRNAs of color with PhDs to do research into the topic of Black maternal mortality.
“Serving on this committee through the lens of a nurse anesthetist of color, I’m trying to do two things: One is to get that perspective on the committee as a nurse anesthetist, and two, also making sure our nurse anesthesia community is aware of the work we’re doing so we can advance and work on dismantling racism within our own profession,” she said.
That work includes having anti-racist policies that yield racial equity within nurse anesthesia programs, she said, such as adopting a holistic admission policy and eliminating institutional barriers.
“These are deep dive conversations that we typically don’t have within our profession,” Gould said. “I’d really like to have this conversation and expand it even more if we could.”