Karol Harshaw Ellis

I would say my success goes back to when I was in high school. I had an Occupational Health Teacher named Joyce Rector who was a nurse. In 11th grade, I wasn't real sure what I wanted to do, and she said I should be a nurse because you can do all sorts of things with nursing. You're not locked into one profession or one area, and you can continue to expand in different areas, and you're never locked into one area, which I've found to be very true. What I really wanted to do was help people, and nursing really fit for me because I believe that's one of my gifts, helping. I was able to step into a career where people think it is just a career, but this is part of my mission and service.

The best advice I received was from one of our leaders, a nurse leader. She was adamant that you may not necessarily be acknowledged in the environment where you planted, so to look out in other areas professionally to stretch yourself and grow.

I would give a young woman advice to get different experiences and develop an expertise and a specialty where you could call yourself an expert. A big thing for me is I encourage people not to go back to school for the degree, but use the degree to flourish in the area that you have a passion for. Make your passion the education work for you. So don't think the degree is what's gonna get it. It has to be your passion, and just use that as a tool to grow in whatever profession that you desire.

The biggest challenge is that healthcare is a very complex system that oftentimes patients and families do not know how to navigate. I think that's the important aspect for nurses, that we can facilitate that. I tell family members, friends, whoever I meet, don't take on the health system without having someone there to help you navigate it, because the language is very different, a lot of emotions is involved in decision-making, and all types of medicine is not the same. So you need someone that knows you and that knows the health system to help you better navigate it. I think nursing is at a serious pass in the road, or pass in their profession. We have to decide what we will be. When I was a nurse, you went into it because it was your passion, not necessarily about the financial aspect of it. I think nursing is trying to change its impression, the way the community sees us. We want to be seen as intelligent and knowledgeable, but nursing continues to be the most trusted profession, and I hope that sticks with us. In the world of technology, I worry about the human touch aspects that nursing provides. We're in a blessed place because we're a group of people who are here when life is given and when life is taken away, and oftentimes we may be the only person, even before the pastor or the family. I just worry about technology and human touch. There's also what people call a shortage of nurses, but as my mentor Connie Mullinex said back in the 80s, there's really not a shortage of nursing, it's where nursing chooses to practice. Most of us are not at the bedside. We're in research, we're teaching, we're nurse practitioners, we're doing other things, consulting, entrepreneurs, so I just think it's where the nurses are, the geographic of nursing. There are a lot of nurses, we're just not in the hospital doing those things.

My values are to treat everyone like you want to be treated. I think you should, anyone that you feel like you can help or be an advocate for, certainly do that, and empower others. It's almost like, you teach a man to fish, you know, you've given for a lifetime. Making sure people have the tools and having people learn from my mistakes, or some mistakes that I made early on in my career. Hopefully they would avoid some of those along the way. I don't know that they're mistakes, because I think my past, whatever things that I fell into, has shaped me into who I am. But maybe mentoring them to facilitate how they can better navigate those things.