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She served as board
member and as a board
chair from 2004-2006
working on various
committees. This award
is one of dozens of
awards the Chicago
native has received in
her more than 20 years
as a nurse, educator and
community activist.
While González loved
being bedside as a
practicing nurse, she
learned early in her
career that the only way
she would make a
difference was at a
decision-making table.
So she took that step.
She has served on the
Chicago Human Relations
Commission’s Advisory
Council on Latino
Affairs, on the board of
the March of Dimes and
its Latino Advisory
Council, where she
worked on the program:
Celebrando La Mujer
Latina, Un Día Para Ti,
benefiting over 500
women annually. She has
also been an advocate
for Latinas and children
at the legislative level.
Through the Legislative
Health Committee and
Hispanic Advisory
Council she helped
create annual health
fairs reaching over
2,000 children each year.
As a diabetes educator
and research specialist
at the University of
Illinois at Chicago (UIC),
she helped design and
implement an awareness
and educational program
that targets Latina
women who have been
diagnosed with
gestational diabetes.
The list goes on and on.
In the course of talking
to González, the
conversation often
drifts to one of her
favorite topics: that of
the current and likely
continuing shortage of
nurses – especially
bilingual, bicultural
ones. She is culturally
sensitive to the health
care needs of the Latino
community, especially
those of Latinas and
their children. “It’s
kind of scary of what
could happen tomorrow,”
she says. “Baby boomers
are retiring, who’s
going to take care of
the Latino population.”
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Susana
with
nurse
leaders
at
MacNeal
Hospital
celebrating
Nurses
Week |
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At MacNeal, the
maternity
patient base is
80 percent
Latino, and 50
percent speak
Spanish. She has
provided her
staff with
learning
opportunities
and cultural
awareness on
Latinos and
Latinas. She has
also increased
the number of
bilingual
speaking nurses
to better serve
the needs of the
patients.
According to
González, when
she became a
nurse, 2 percent
of the
occupation’s
nurses were
Latino. Today,
that figure
hovers around
the same. |
According to the 2004
National Sample of
Registered Nurses,
Hispanics are vastly
underrepresented at a
mere 2 percent of the
registered nurse
population compared to
the 14.2 percent of
Hispanics which make up
the total U.S.
population. “Not only
are we underrepresented,
but we will continue to
be underrepresented,”
says González. “We
haven’t made any
progress at all.”
At
MacNeal, she oversees a
staff of 72 nurses and
support staff. She helps
set the standards of the
department, holds her
staff accountable to
meet those standards and—perhaps
most importantly—seeks
to open the door for
Latinas behind her. “I
have a handful of Latina
students who are what I
call my protégés of
tomorrow,” she says. “In
three years or five
years, they’re
graduating. They’re
going to be registered
nurses. That’s my pride
and joy.”
On
an average day, González
arrives at the hospital
between 6 a.m. and 7
a.m. She then begins
rounding, a term nurses
refer to when updating
missing or necessary
equipment, determining
the adequacy of staffing
levels and reviewing the
budget.
If someone had told
González years back she
would be waking up at
dawn, the night owl
would have called her
bluff. “At this point in
my life if I had to do
it all over again, I’d
do it in a heartbeat. I
think the underlying
factor for me is loving
what you do, and knowing
for the short time
you’re on this earth
somewhere you’ve made a
difference in someone’s
life,” she says. “That’s
the only philosophy I
actually live by.”
Deeply spiritual,
González is quick to
accept life’s twists
because of an unyielding
belief God has carved
her path—and it’s the
right one—whether she
understands it or not.
It is how she got
through a bout with
cancer and the months of
chemotherapy it took to
take her to remission.
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González and her husband
separated during that
time but even that, she
says, “wasn’t a loss but
a necessary change.”
It is González’ optimism
that makes Fabiola
Zavala, her colleague,
such an admirer. They
met in 1999 while
working on a project at
the University of
Illinois, Chicago.
González was hard to
miss. “When she walks
into a room everybody
notices her,” says
Zavala, who does
community health
outreach at MacNeal
Hospital. “She goes on
and on and on and has
all these ideas and gets
excited about everything.”
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MacNeal
Hospital
nurses,
staff
and
Susana
at the
2007
March of
Dimes
Walk
America
in
Chicago |
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“Her energy is
contagious,” says
Zavala. “But the way she
handles adversity is
even more striking. She
says ‘If God takes you
to it, he’ll take you
through it.’ Whenever I
have a problem or think
I have a huge problem I
think of her and it gets
me through it, it really
does.”
For over two decades,
González has educated
mothers on how to have
healthy pregnancies,
she’s taught Lamaze to
help them have safe
deliveries. To González,
each baby is a gift.
Sometimes, though, as
she considers work, the
irony is not lost: How
can she work in the
realm of babies and yet
unable to have any of
her own?
“I
won’t say it doesn’t
hurt from time to time.
I was pregnant. I had
all the joys. I got the
sickness and vertigo. It
was the best experience
of my life. It just
didn’t happen,” says
González, who
momentarily broke down
talking about it.
But even through her
tears, González noted a
silver lining. “Making a
difference in someone
else’s life is the next
best thing...My life is
full,” she says. “I help
other women with their
families so they can
live a better life.”
By Arlene Martínez
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