Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies

Nursing Student: Miranda Lambert

Emery Clifford: Thank you for agreeing to do this interview with us today! We’re very
excited to be able to talk to you about the WGS partnership with the School of Nursing. So, my
first question that we have for you today is when did you decide to become a Nursing major and
what are your specific career goals?
Miranda Lambert: I had a little bit of a different path. I know that some people come
right out of high school knowing what they want to do, but I really didn’t know what I wanted to
do. I learned in myself, as a chemical engineering major, that I decided after the first semester
really wasn’t for me that I wanted to do something more medical. So, I changed my major to
pre-med and I didn’t want to do four more years of graduate school after being able to be a
doctor. Then, after looking at nursing roles and what they do, I really thought that fit my
personality better so I decided to become a nursing major and my career goals are to work in
women’s health, whether that be on a maternity floor or an outpatient facility. I’m super
passionate about women’s health and creating equitable care and so I think something like that
is where I want to end up.
Emery Clifford: That’s really awesome to hear! As of right now, there are three nursing
courses which are now counted as WGS electives. This includes Nursing 300: Health
Assessment Through the Lifespan, Nursing 414: Nursing Care Management of Women, Infants,
and Families, and Nursing 452: Community and Population Healthcare. Have you taken any of
these courses so far and if so, which ones have you taken.
Miranda Lambert: I’ve taken NUR 300. I took that last semester. I haven’t taken 414 or
452 yet, those are in the upcoming year for me.
Emery Clifford: When you learned that those courses would now be counted as WGS
electives, were you surprised? If so, why? And if not, why not?
Miranda Lambert: Yeah, I was a little bit surprised. I originally had a WGS minor when I
was a pre-med major and while I was switching to nursing alongside my adviser kind of decided
that with how heavy the Nursing schedule is it would be a better decision to drop that minor. So,
I didn’t have it for two semesters, I think. But I did end up picking it back up this semester when I
learned that those courses that I have to take will count towards the WGS minor. I was super
surprised. There was not necessarily a huge reason behind it, I just didn’t think that the course
descriptions were aligned with the WGS minor, I guess. However, I am super happy that they
are working towards trying to partner with the Nursing school at UMaine and trying to get more
Nursing students involved in WGS. I think it’s a super important thing.
Emery Clifford: Yeah! I definitely agree with you. I think the WGS topics can be really
important to the topic of healthcare as a whole. In relation to the previous question, now that
you’ve had some time to think about it, we’d love to hear any examples of materials that you’ve
covered in any of these classes that seems to have correlated with or potentially been
enhanced by WGS coursework.
Miranda Lambert: I’ve only taken NUR 300, so I can’t really speak to a full extent on
everything that correlates with WGS until I take those other two courses as well, but in NUR 300
I know a big focus for us was pain and how that can be influenced by cultural aspects. Even
where we are in the US, men are taught to be stoic and not cry as a boy. You can’t cry when
you’re hurt, you can’t show that you’re in pain, and you have to be strong. That was a super big
point for us to go over and to think about these cultural differences that have to do with pain and
how we can understand that experience as nursing and kind of interpret that. Like, is this pain
worse than what’s really happening, or are they playing it off? What’s really going on? So, we
have to sometimes read between the lines because patients don’t always tell you everything.
That was one of the big things and I think there’s another one we touched on. We used to do
case studies in that class a lot as well. One thing we touched on was herbal supplements and
how different cultures are more inclined to take different herbal supplements versus what the
symptoms their having and how they may be a little shy to tell a healthcare professional about
what their taking because if they don’t believe in the same culture aspects that the patient does
than their might be some miscommunication. So, we really focused on that and how it’s
important that other people, based on their preferences, believe different things that may not
align with the primary system of healthcare within the US right now.
Emery Clifford: Those seem like some really good examples as to why having this
more diverse approach to healthcare can really benefit someone’s learning and their future
interactions with the patients. The next question that I have for you is this: in addition to the
double-dipped Nursing and WGS classes which you’ve already spoken about, have you taken
any other WGS courses so far? If so, which one or which ones? We’d also love to hear
examples of any ideas or concepts that you’ve encountered within these WGS courses so far
that might enhance your coursework in Nursing or may be important to your future career as a
nurse.
Miranda Lambert: Yeah, for WGS courses, I’ve taken 101, 203, and 205. I think the
most eye-opening course for me was 205. We read a book within this course called “Data
Feminism” and that was sort of the back bone book of the course that we based our big projects
on at the end of the semester. I remember reading, it was on the first page actually, about
Serena Williams and her experience in birthing her own child and what she went through
because she did have a pretty traumatic birth story. She advocated for herself because as a
black women, she knew she was more susceptible to certain conditions during her birth and she
was able to advocate for herself when her doctor’s were sort of, not necessarily forced to listen
to her, but were more apt to understand where she was coming from because she had that
fame attached to her name and she described how she really wanted to become an advocate
for this because there are other patients out there that don’t have this fame attached to their
name that are more susceptible to certain things that can happen during birth and some doctors
aren’t going to listen to you or hear you out, unless you do have that sort of fame or reputation
attached to your name. So, that kind of influenced my final project. I did mine on maternal
mortality rate and in the US, even though we are one of the most or arguably the most
developed country, we do have one of the highest maternal mortality rates in and of itself and
especially in minority groups. Which is kind of sad to say considering that we do have one of the
most developed healthcare systems. So, I think within the WGS minor you kind of get to
understand why these things are happening. Because, yes, there are scientific explanations, but
there are also kinds of other things that are embedded in healthcare that we need to work on.
Like, there are certain things that we can improve on that you don’t necessarily learn within the
Nursing courses which can be enhanced by the WGS courses.
Emery Clifford: Well, that’s really good to hear that you’ve been able to gain so much
from the WGS courses, especially in relation to the career path that you have and your pursuits
of a career as a nurse. In relation to the last question, how might minoring in WGS contribute to
both your educational and career development related goals.
Miranda Lambert: Especially where I want to end up, and I want to end up working
somewhere within women’s health, so I think that WGS really helps to understand and grasp
more cultural concepts concerning women and what women are more apt to experience in
healthcare. I know in one of our WGS courses, I’m not exactly sure which one it was, but we
talked about women’s pain and how women’s pain is often more likely to be brushed off. Versus,
like, men’s pain. So, if we’re having concerns with abdominal pain, for example, it’s more likely
to be based on or attributed to our menstrual cycle even though it could be something else like
appendicitis or something more drastic than just menstrual cramps. So, I think having a WGS
minor helps you understand more of the empathetic and more of the culturally competent ways
to approach, not even just women, but our society as a whole. Versus, in Nursing school, in
those courses you kind of get the broad outline, per se, of how to work and portray yourself as a
nurse. I think that WGS has really helped me especially to gain that empathetic portion and
other perspectives that Nursing may have brushed upon, but didn’t really get into the nitty-gritty
like WGS can.
Emery Clifford: My next question is sort of the opposite of the last one. How do you
think patients seeking care from nurses who take WGS coursework may benefit from their
providers having taken this type of educational approach? For example, what are your thoughts
about how gender, sexuality, and other identity markers such as social class, race, age, ability,
and so on might factor into healthcare from whether or not someone can afford or feel
comfortable going to the hospital to the assumption that healthcare practitioners might bring into
their practice? In other words, what challenges might healthcare practitioners face in trying to
treat clients equitably and with care?
Miranda Lambert: Yeah! So, I think the WGS minor is super important in unpacking the
cultural aspects of everything and more of the equitable portion of healthcare. We don’t really
get to touch upon that as much in Nursing school, especially the equitable portion of healthcare.
Especially in Maine, if you think about our rural areas, they’re not getting the best healthcare
that they can. They’re not getting the preventative care that you can try seeking in a bigger city.
Like, you have to travel for your healthcare and you have to pay for gas. But what if you can’t
travel for your healthcare? Like, if you’re becoming older and you can’t drive any more, for
example. I think that that’s super important and that is more touched upon in WGS than it is in
Nursing school and I think that can help bring some more just care to patients as well. That’s
something that I’m also really passionate about, you know, providing care to these low-income
neighborhoods or these rural areas that don’t have the care that they arguably should have
access to. I think about it, especially with growing up in Maine, like in Fort Kent or areas up
there, it’s a really small area without a big population so you kind of have to think about it that
way versus a big city. And, of course, big cities do have their own problems too with their
low-income areas that aren’t getting the best care that they can as well and I think that these
areas are more touched upon in WGS which especially helps me as a Nursing major. I mean,
you’re aware of this in Nursing school, but it’s not one of the big things that you focus on. So, I
think that having this extra background with WGS coursework can help you to also provide more
empathetic care and to understand where your patients are coming from and why they’re getting
frustrated or why they aren’t receiving the care that they should or why their doctors aren’t
catching their medical issues in time, and they’re not getting that adequate preventative care.
That’s a super frustrating topic that I think nurses can help to mitigate by taking WGS courses
as well.
Emery Clifford: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. Then, our last question for you
today is just if there’s anything else which you’d like to share. We’d love examples of materials
or ideas you’ve encountered in WGS courses that have already enhanced how you think about
your career path, or coursework in your major, or just anything else really that you might want to
share about what it’s like for you having these intersections between the Nursing program and
the WGS program in your education and career related aspirations and experiences.
Miranda Lambert: The intersections between both Nursing and WGS, I think, are super
important. In Nursing, it’s really science intensive. Everything has an anatomical function.
Everything has a why. But it’s all related to the body. So, I thought it was really interesting
coming into a WGS minor because you kind of find out more of the philosophical reasonings
behind everything that is happening in healthcare and so I think that’s super important. There’s
multiple things that you can relate this to, but I really relate it to the maternal mortality rate in the
US and while, yes, there are some scientific reasons as to why minorities are dying at much
higher rates during birth than the majority is, but I also think that there is some systemic racism
in healthcare that can be mitigate, or not even can be, but needs to be, in order to provide better
care and lower the maternal mortality rate and I think while learning about, I’m super excited to
take NUR 414 next semester because that’s the maternity class and I’d love to see how that
intersects with WGS, especially with already knowing about the maternal mortality rate and with
already having some understanding of how we can make changes on a philosophical way. So,
I’m excited to see how we can approach it through more scientific reasonings because it’s kind
of like there is scientific reasoning, but everything plays a part as well and these philosophical
reasons are a little bit bigger than the scientific reasonings. So, I think it’s super important to
have that intersection between WGS and Nursing as well.
Emery Clifford: Yeah, that makes sense to me. So, I think that was all of the questions
that we had prepared for you today then. I, again, really appreciate you taking the time to have
this interview with me. It was really nice being able to talk with you and do this interview and
we’ll be excited to put it up on the WGS website to show a student perspective on the
importance of WGS topics in Nursing and healthcare and to make this opportunity more widely
known to students within a similar career path as you.
Miranda Lambert: Yeah, well, thank you so much for taking the time to interview me
today. I really appreciate it.