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AmandaGolinoCNS

May 11 • 25 tweets • 24 min read

@DonQuenick

Racism in nursing- centering the story of @DonQuenick-a 🧵

DonQuenick was a 3 time nominated Daisy award winning nurse working in ICU. She also received the American Heart Association award for performing CPR to a patient. She received many patient compliments. 1/18

DonQuenick (DQ) was by all accounts an excellent nurse-but she reported being treated poorly at work. This ranged from unsafe staffing assignments, unfair critiques, lack of leadership support, unaddressed complaints and retaliatory practices. At one point things went so 2/18

far as to include accusations of theft of patient belongings that were later dropped. In May 2019, Nurse DQ was caring for a patient who was critically ill. The family decided to withdraw care and the MD gave an order to remove him from the ventilator. This is fairly common 3/18

in ICU-when a family decides to stop, we stop-sometimes rather quickly, because continuing may be considered assault. Because DQs Respiratory Therapist was busy, he walked her through removing the patient from the vent which she completed. It was not until much later that 4/18

questions were asked as to the patients death, which was ruled of natural causes (sepsis). The hospital where DQ worked subsequently fired her and proceeded to work with the Attorney General. DQ was charged with manslaughter as well as a few other things. 5/18

These charges destroyed DQs career. She has successfully fought these charges and they have been dropped, but how do you rebuild your life after being charged with such a horrendous crime? Nurses take an oath to care for their patients, and an RN with DQs skills 6/18

should be working-her skills are so very much needed in ICU. Instead she has lost her career, her reputation, her license (at one point), & has experienced homelessness. Having talked with DQ, what breaks my heart most is that she is missing her family. 7/18

This entire situation has been an attempt to ruin a Black Nurses career, and as a group, ALL NURSES need to speak up! If you stood up for a nurse who made a fatal error after bypassing safety checks, you should be standing up for DonQuenick! 8/18

What actions can you take? Read her story. I have been reading as much as I can so I have the info and can be informed. 9/18

This is a good overview:

news.yahoo.com/pretty-much-ho…