Kaleidoscope of excellence: An interview with Edilma L Yearwood

Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, Jan-Mar 1999 by Finke, Linda M

An Interview With Edilma L. Yearwood, PhD, RN, CS

LF: How do you describe yourself professionally?

EY: Professionally, I view myself as someone who is very passionate about certain issues, a lifelong learner, a role model, and an advocate. I believe that in order to do something well, you need to feel strong and confident about it. Within our profession, we must remain open and always strive to obtain more knowledge, both formally and informally. My most valuable lessons have been learned through my psychosocial relationships with others. As a professional and a person of color, I constantly strive to be a positive role model for students and staff. Sometimes this becomes a difficult task, because then there are multiple expectations and challenges that accompany being a fairly secure, assertive, and competent minority. In my role as an advocate, I attempt to support others in their negotiations with various systems.

LF: How did your career take the direction it did? Who has been helpful in your career development?

EY: I am the first person in my family to have attended college and the first person in my family to earn a doctoral degree. My parents have always gently pushed me to work toward my potential. Later, my late husband and now my children have been supportive of my hectic and demanding professional schedule. While a baccalaureate, master's, and doctoral student and in my various clinical and teaching positions, I was fortunate to have received the support and friendship of several mentors. In the 14 years that I've been a member of the Association of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing, there have been several people within the organization who have mentored me and supported my personal and professional growth and development. Among them are Sharon Shisler, Pam Galehouse, Sarah Raphel, and Dr. Mary Lou de Leon Siantz.

After graduating from the University of Connecticut, I started my career in pediatrics and pediatric ICU, where I found that my greatest strength and satisfaction came from working with parents whose children had experienced a variety of traumas and helping them cope with this event. It was at this point that I decided to return to school, and I attended New York University, with a focus on delivery of mental health services to children and families.

LF: What obstacles did you have to overcome?

EY: I think in my career, which now spans 24 years, the most significant obstacle that I have not been able to overcome is the ongoing issue of having to fight in order to have the voice of children and disenfranchised families heard. I am constantly appalled by the decisions made for children and families with little or no regard for their input and without respecting their rights or culture. In my clinical practice, I continue to spend time educating families and children around developing their curiosity, and around assessing and questioning decisions that affect them.

LF: How do you juggle your various responsibilities of family, professional and personal aspects of your life?

EY: With a lot of help from my children! As I mentioned before, they are very supportive and have rescued me on a number of occasions. I have an 8-year-old son and an 18-year-old daughter, who just completed her first year of college. We keep a calendar in the kitchen, which is updated almost daily. It is a means of keeping us organized and successfully attending to everyone's social and educational needs. We also have periodic family conferences to talk about issues and make decisions that affect us all. My parents, who live a half-hour away, provide babysitting support, which enables me to attend professional conferences or meetings out of town and to adhere to my faculty work schedule.

LF: What are your research interests?

EY: I completed doctoral studies at Adelphi University in November 1997. My dissertation was entitled "Growing Up Children: Current child-rearing practice among immigrant Jamaican families." There is such a paucity of qualitative research on minority populations that I have decided to focus on this area. I am currently developing a pilot study to look at child health practices and beliefs of immigrant Caribbeans. I am particularly interested in understanding the negotiating that occurs around healthcare recommendations by providers here, and how the family chooses to practice, given traditional countryof-origin beliefs. I am very excited about this project.

LF: What are your professional goals for the future?

EY: One goal is to recruit more students of color into nursing and to encourage minority nurses toward advanced education. Because both the academic and clinical environments are changing so rapidly, I believe it is imperative that we have more nurses working in these areas who more closely reflect the student body and the clients we care for.

I also would like to contribute articles to nursing's body of literature that emphasize cultural diversity and that challenge readers to become more creative in practice. I think we need to move away from a narrow and traditional perspective at times in order to remain stimulated.