Navigating the healthcare system can feel overwhelming and confusing, but understanding how to advocate for yourself and ask the right questions can literally save your life. In this article, I’m breaking down essential strategies from my conversation with registered ER nurse LaShunda Wells that will empower you to take control of your healthcare journey and ensure you receive the treatment you deserve.
Whether you’re dealing with a current health condition, caring for a sick loved one, or simply want to be prepared for future medical encounters, these insights will give you the tools to fight for better health outcomes.
I sat down with LaShunda Wells, a registered nurse with 17 years of experience including 13 years in the emergency room, to discuss what really happens in healthcare and how you can protect yourself:
Why Healthcare Advocacy Matters Right Now
There is an emergency that is actually in the world today and it’s a serious emergency because none of us can escape the reality that we’re going to deal with something with respect to our health. There’s going to be something we have to fight through, something we have to fight for and sometimes we have to fight for other people who are going through very difficult things concerning their health.
When you think about the health care system today, there is so much to navigate. There are so many ways to just end up in a bad situation because you didn’t know something or you didn’t know what to ask, what to do. Being able to be aware of what you need as an individual is very, very important when it comes to your health.
You are one decision away. You are one mindset away from something that can really change your life drastically. That’s why I wanted to have this conversation with LaShunda Wells, who leads our customer success operation at Personal Health Design and runs her own business, Compassion Flow, providing specialized phlebotomy services.
From Childhood Trauma to Emergency Room Expert
LaShunda’s journey to becoming a nurse is unlike most healthcare professionals. Born and raised in Oakland, California, as the youngest girl of six siblings in a single-parent household, she learned about care and compassion from her mother at an early age. Her mom would take her and her siblings to nursing homes to visit individuals that may not have had families.
But the pivotal moment came when LaShunda was just 10 or 11 years old. She was involved in a very serious car accident where her siblings were pretty much ejected onto the freeway. It was very, very traumatic. When she went to Children’s Hospital in Oakland, California, she saw all the nurses and doctors running around, but she connected with the nurses because they were the ones touching, they were the ones talking, and their tone was different.
She knew right then and there at about 10 or 11 years old that’s what she wanted to do. From that point on, through elementary, middle school, and high school, whenever anyone asked, she said she was going to be a nurse.
Overcoming Obstacles Most People Can’t Imagine
But LaShunda’s path wasn’t straightforward. She was actually a high school dropout. She didn’t go to high school after eighth grade because her mom dealt with a lot of health issues and different things in her life. LaShunda and her older sister, at about 16 years old, both got jobs to try to help support the house.
She never felt like she was missing out though. She felt the urge on the inside to help someone navigate what she had been through. It was almost like a passion to assist from childhood, and she can’t explain the connection, but that’s how she felt.
Eventually, with help from a good family friend, LaShunda got what they call a California high school proficiency examination, which is credited as a high school diploma. Then she started going to Merit College in Oakland, and it actually took her nine years to complete her two-year degree.
She dealt a lot with not having the structure of how to study, how to put in the time, how to ask for help. There was a little bit of struggle the first maybe five years until about 2005. She was in arithmetic, starting with basic math, and she had to be okay mentally with that even though she was an adult. She had to struggle and begin to learn how to ask for the right proper help.
What Really Happens in the Emergency Room
LaShunda didn’t really know she wanted to be in an emergency department until her last semester of nursing school. When her clinical instructor allowed her to go and shadow, she instantaneously connected to it. She has a personality that is constantly always moving and can think in a couple different ways and still be focused. The emergency room matched her ADHD very well.
She loves the unpredictableness. It caused her to think on her feet. It caused her to critically look at someone and not just put them in the same basket. Everyone is different.
Life and Death Decisions Every Day
In Richmond, California, an inner city area with a lot of different situations like gunshot wounds, LaShunda saw a lot of trauma. It’s almost like a person was a puzzle piece and the medical team were the people that helped put them back together. She loves the fast pace of seeing someone that may have came in with a gunshot wound not knowing where it went and they’re failing, and you’re that individual that helps to save their life.
Her youngest patient was seven weeks old, a baby that was critically ill. She had patients like that, people her age, elderly patients with different illnesses. Would you say that’s a large percentage of what happens in the emergency room, life and death situations? Absolutely. 95% of the time someone’s coming to the emergency room, their life needs to be saved.
Skills Required to Work Under Pressure
Managing stress and making decisions under pressure requires being focused and calm. It’s very important that if someone comes in and they’re scared, you don’t match that energy. LaShunda’s tone is going to be very calm and very approachable. She touches patients to make sure that they know she’s not there to harm them. A lot of times when you do that, people tend to calm down.
You have to be clear and concise. Sometimes you have to learn how to navigate and also direct people. If LaShunda is the primary nurse and there’s a code blue situation, she can’t be in the middle of it. She has to be the person that steps back and begins to delegate, being firm and direct while showing the team that she cares about them and their help as well.
How to Advocate for Yourself in the Healthcare System
Everything can absolutely go wrong when you don’t have anyone to help you navigate healthcare. Sometimes individuals can see that you don’t have a support system or knowledge base that you may need to help get through to the doctor. A lot of people are afraid to just ask. That’s the biggest thing.
The doctor, the nurses, whoever is on your healthcare team is your team. They work for the patient. Without you being there, they wouldn’t be who they are. When people don’t have the knowledge base or someone just to help them ask the right questions, to know what to do or how to do it, that can really harm them in their life or in their health.
The Danger of Not Asking Questions
A lot of times people are fearful and there have been times even in the emergency department where people have made decisions afraid to overstep the doctor or overstep someone that may be in authority. You have to help coach them as the nurse because nurses are the ones touching the patient and at the bedside 100% of the time.
LaShunda has coached patients on what to say to the doctor. They sometimes don’t know that if you ask about a certain medication or a resource to help you get the care that you need at home or medical equipment, there are options. She’s had a lot of patients, elderly to even children, that didn’t know that a social worker can help come in to make phone calls and get the things that they need.
