Remembering 2020: Year of the Most Memorable National Challenges

By Felicia Hunt

The year 2020 is the most memorable of all times due to the undeniable national challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic spread quite rapidly throughout the nation, causing businesses, schools, colleges, huge events, ball games, and any traveling to be either cancelled, placed on hold, or closed indefinitely. As a result of this major change, many individuals and families were forced to stay home in quarantine, which caused major mental health issues and general health issues, such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes, which were on the rise as well. Also, many individuals and families lost loved ones due to COVID-19, most of which were in the African-American and Latino/Latinex communities. Moreover, during the COVID-19 pandemic, systemic racism became a commonality in the US. The death of an African-American man as a result of police brutality raised major concerns and international protests from the Black Lives Matter civil rights movement.

This book outlines and teaches individuals and families regarding preventive health practices and maintaining optimal healthy lifestyles. Also, this book dissects and outlines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and how systemic racism plays a major role in our Black and Brown communities nationwide.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: May 31, 2022
• ISBN: 9781639856701

Book preview

REMEMBERING 2020

Year of the Most Memorable National Challenges

Bridging the Gaps in Health Care

Health Disparities in Rural Communities

A Quick Reference Guide

Felicia Hunt

COVID-19 PANDEMIC

2020 AND SYSTEMIC RACISM

Copyright © 2022 Felicia Hunt

All rights reserved

First Edition

Fulton Books

Meadville, PA

Published by Fulton Books 2022

ISBN 978-1-63985-669-5 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63985-670-1 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Dedication

Biography

Part 1

Defining Courage: Mind, Body, and Spirit

Defining the Role of the Nurse versus the Role of the Medical Provider (Physician, Nurse Practitioner, and Physician Assistant)

Diversity and Cultural Language Barriers

Social Injustice in the Health-Care Industry

Medical Compliance and How It Affects the Health-Care Industry

Examples of Medical Compliance Issues in the Health-Care Industry in the United States

Chapter 1: Preventive Health Strategies throughout the Adult Life Span

Preventive Health Screenings throughout the Adult Life Span

Chapter 2: Helpful Strategies to Use to Develop Successful Relationships and to Deal with Stress in the Health-Care Industry

Chapter 3: Geriatric Fun Activities and Screening Tools

Depression, Anxiety, and Loneliness Screening Tools for Geriatrics and the General Population

Chapter 4: A Synopsis of the Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic throughout the Nation

COVID-19 Treatment Options and Research

COVID-19 Protests to Reopen the US

Chapter 5: COVID-19 Tragedies and Social Injustices

My Own Personal Coronavirus Experience

Final Remarks

Part 2

Systemic Racism and Politics

References

DEDICATION

I would like to dedicate this book to all of the frontline workers, essential workers, and to all of the individuals and families who lost loved ones as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and/or police brutality.

Also, I would like to dedicate this book to my late parents, Tartus Ruth Hunt and Bennie Hunt.

And to all my teachers, educators, colleagues, family, and friends, a very special thanks for your support throughout the process of writing this book.

Thank you!

BIOGRAPHY

My name is Felicia L. Hunt, and I was born and raised in a small rural town in Birmingham, Alabama. I was adopted by a loving mother and father along with my three sisters. My mother was a foster mom, and my father was a retired railroad engineer. We lived in a nice two-story home, and we went to church often on Sundays and during the week. I grew up in a Southern Baptist Church.

During my early teenage years, my mother and father became ill, which means my sisters and I became caregivers at very young ages. My father passed away when I was around thirteen after years of surviving the aftermath of a severe stroke. Next, my mother passed away a few months after I graduated high school, after years of battling end-stage kidney disease and diabetes.

While caring for my mother and father, I discovered the world of nursing. The home health nurse came to our home a couple of days to teach us how to change and dress wounds while caring for my mother. Also, my mother received dialysis three days a week. Therefore, my sisters and I would make sure she was dressed, bathed, and fed daily.

The experience of caring for my mother and father gave me the idea of becoming a nurse. First, I received a scholarship to a community college, Lawson State Community College. This is where I received my associate’s degree in applied science in nursing (AA) in 2001. My first nursing experience was in cardiovascular and medical surgical nursing, and then after about a year, I graduated to the intensive care unit. After about ten years in nursing practice, I became a travel nurse and decided to continue my education, and therefore, I obtained my bachelor of science in nursing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham in 2012. I also worked as a charge nurse on a cardiothoracic unit at the University of Alabama–Birmingham. After I obtained my BSN, I continued my travel nursing career in Las Vegas, Nevada; Thief River Falls, Minnesota; and Los Angeles, California. In 2014, I decided to start grad school at Walden University in Minneapolis, Minnesota, while pursuing my master’s degree in nursing with a concentration in gerontology and acute care nurse practitioner studies. Throughout my graduate school education, I had the privilege of pursuing my nurse practitioner clinical practicum in Los Angeles, California. Finally, in 2016, I graduated with my master’s degree in nursing, with a major in gerontology, to become an acute care nurse practitioner. Today, I’m a superdelegate COVID-19 nurse practitioner for CVS and an adult medicine primary care and gerontology provider.

PART 1

Defining Courage: Mind, Body, and Spirit

In our everyday lives as human beings, we are constantly building courage and maintaining integrity while defining our self-worth and self-identities. Building courage starts from the time we are born. First, we develop our own unique personalities, and then we learn morals from our families and our socioeconomic environments. Although we develop our own unique self-identities, we often become discouraged by the criticisms of others, the mistakes we make, and lack of perseverance, motivation, and determination. Also, bullying is a constant struggle in many schools today. And for adults, we have the responsibility of maintaining our family, our careers, and our social lives. Also, we become discouraged when we lose a loved one, lose our home, lose a job, or get a divorce—which may all create financial burdens.

This book outlines and defines the steps to building and maintaining courage through mind, body, and spiritual realms. Also, this book involves pertinent information and serves as a quick reference guide to maintaining optimal health-care preventive medicine treatment options and also the roles of the nurse, physician assistant, physician, and nurse practitioner and how medical treatment options can affect our lives as a whole. Finally, the book dissects the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic and systemic racism.

Defining the Role of the Nurse versus the Role of the Medical Provider (Physician, Nurse Practitioner, and Physician Assistant)

The major role of the nurse involves use of the nursing process, which includes nursing assessment, nursing diagnosis, planning, implementation, and evaluation.¹ On the other hand, the role of the medical provider (physician, nurse practitioner, and physician assistant) includes formulating medical diagnoses, treatment plans, discharge planning, prescribing medications, and consulting and collaborating with each member of the health-care team in order to formulate individualized treatment plans and to promote optimal exceptional outcomes.

One of the most valuable lessons of being a nurse or medical provider or member of a health-care team is formulating accurate and precise definitive medical diagnoses and treatment plans, which oftentimes requires strong collaboration skills. However, there