Speaker Series

REGISTER HERE

NNEC Speaker Series 5B Documentary Screening

Friday, February 2, 2024 | 10 a.m. -12 p.m. PST

Speaker:
Dr. Ella Curry

Description: The 2024 NNEC theme explores an ethic of care as a key to discovering meaning and purpose in nursing. As a preview to the conference, please join the Ethics of Caring® for a Special Screening of the 5B documentary, followed by a timely conversation about what we can learn from the nurses who forged a new innovative approach to patient care in the first AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital in the early 1980s. 2.5 CNE will be provided.
The documentary 5B conveys an inspirational story of everyday heroes, nurses, and caregivers who took extraordinary action to comfort, protect, and care for the patients in the first AIDS ward at San Francisco General Hospital in the early 1980s. This critical moment in health care history is conveyed through first-person accounts from nurses and healthcare professionals who, in the absence of any existing protocols, forged a new, innovative approach to patient care that was both medically sound and humane. Johnson & Johnson commissioned this documentary to demonstrate the impact of nurses in health care and inspire the next generation of innovative nurses by showing them how nurses responded to a health crisis that ultimately became a new standard of care.
The 90-minute film can be screened at any convenient time, or you can register to view the film with us, which will be followed by a guided conversation by Carol Taylor, PhD, MSN, RN,FAAN (NNEC moderator) and Ella P. Curry, PhD, MTS, RN (guest speaker).

Guest Speaker Bio: Dr. Ella Curry cared for her first patient with AIDS in 1983 in a CCU in the Boston area; it was her 7th year of nursing practice. She earned her Masters of Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School in 1988, where she self-designed a course of study in ethics, theology, world religions, and historical responses to disease, plagues, and pandemics. During her time at Divinity School, she committed to work full-time in HIV/AIDS Care, moved to WADC, and worked with an AIDS-dedicated home care agency until joining the staff of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Georgetown University Medical Center, where she served for 25 years as an educator and HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis Clinical Nurse Specialist. Those years of service broadened her perspectives on health and illness, particularly the impact of stigma attached to particular infections and diseases.
Ella completed her PhD in Nursing at George Mason University in 2012 with concentrations in health policy and historical research. Her dissertation research enabled her to travel the United States recording the oral histories of frontline nurses in AIDS care who served during the first seven years of the AIDS pandemic when no effective treatments were yet available; those nurses were among the women and men who went on to found the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care (ANAC) in 1987. Ella served as a consultant to ANAC in 2017 to assist in the development of a permanent archive of 30 years of nursing history in AIDS care from their extensive collection of records, writings, and conferences. The ANAC archive was gifted to the Bates Center for Nursing History, University of Pennsylvania. Most recently, Ella served for three years as a Consultant to faith-based communities in WADC, Maryland, Delaware, and West Virginia as these communities worked to develop sound practices, policies, and procedures in response to the emergence and evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Objectives:

Upon completion of this viewing and conversation, participants will be able to:

  • Discuss the necessity to integrate nursing’s primary meaning, purpose, and values into systems, solutions, and societal views of caregiving.
  • Describe the new innovative approach to the patient care of patients with AIDs at San Francisco General Hospital in the 1980s and how their work ultimately became a new standard of care.
  • Identify qualities in the nurses interviewed in 5B that are needed today to ensure nurses continue to meet contemporary challenges with sound and humane protocols.

Contact Hours: 2.5

Successful Completion:

  1. View live webinar
  2. Complete online evaluation and attestation of completion

Conflict of Interest: No conflict of interest exists for anyone in the position to control content for this activity.

Schedule (Pacific Time)
10:00 – 10:10 am: Welcome Remarks and Introduction – Anna Dermenchyan and Carol Taylor
10:10 – 11:45 am: Movie Screening
11:45 – 11:50 pm: Stretch Break
11:50 – 12:20 pm: Group Discussion
12:20 – 12:30 pm: Closing Remarks and CE