Danielle McCamey is a visionary, mentor, leader and educator. She has nearly 20 years of nursing experience including over a decade as an acute care nurse practitioner. Her specialties range from perianesthesia to palliative and critical care. She serves as assistant dean for strategic partnerships at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing and is founder, CEO and president of DNPs of Color.
She received a BSN from the University of Virginia, and both an MS in acute care advanced practice and a DNP from Georgetown University. She earned a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in the Workplace Certificate from the University of South Florida and a Nonprofit Management Executive Certificate from Georgetown University. Dr. McCamey was inducted as a fellow in the American College of Chest Physicians, the Academy of Diversity Leaders in Nursing and the American Academy of Nursing.
Tell us about your nursing journey.
I have been in nursing since 2003 and have always been in critical care. I absolutely love it. Nursing is a unique profession in that we get the opportunity to care for people in all aspects of life. It offers flexibility for you to explore and evolve in your contributions and service to the profession in the different phases of your life and career. For me, critical care has always been my calling in that I thrive in a dynamic environment, and I love the opportunity to connect with people in their most vulnerable moments. In critical care no day is the same, and I enjoy that variety of learning and experiences. Critical care offers so many gifts; you get to experience the joys of seeing your patients get better, and you also have times where you get the honor of ushering someone into a dignified death.
Congratulations on being named a recipient of the 2024 AACN Pioneering Spirit Award. What was it like to be honored with this prestigious award?
When I was honored with the Visionary Leadership Pioneering Spirit Award, I was extremely shocked, honored and humbled. When you're doing your passion and your mission's work, you don't think about the things or the accolades that come with it.
For me, I'm just so resolute in being focused on amplifying voices that have been historically excluded, creating access to opportunities for folks who may not have had those opportunities afforded to them.
My mentor, Dr. Gloria McNeal, had mentioned that she was going to submit the nomination but she never confirmed. I was extremely excited and just so grateful, and it gave me the opportunity to pause and reflect on all the transformative work that I had the opportunity to be able to contribute to nursing.
You've been recognized as a visionary leader. Tell us about your leadership journey and what brought you to this moment.
Being a visionary leader is a community effort. I've always fought the title of being called a leader. Throughout my career, I watched so many leaders, and just seeing the responsibility associated with it caused me to shy away. It's like the further I ran, the closer it just kept tracking me down. I have had the great fortune to have mentors who have helped tap my potential so that I could accept being a visionary. I found that when I operated within the gift of my service of leadership, people listened, people felt inspired and we were able to get some good work done.
Among your many accomplishments is your commitment to advancing DEI, antiracism and belonging in nursing. As founder and president of DNPs of Color, tell us about this amazing organization's vision and mission.
As founder, CEO and president of DNPs of Color, a 501c3 nonprofit national organization, I strive to build a community for nurses of color through networking, mentorship and advocacy to increase diversity, specifically in doctoral nursing practice. Our ultimate vision is to increase diversity in the doctoral nursing profession.
In addition, I am co-creator and former chair of the Doctoral Nurses Collaborative, a group that joins DNP and PhD-prepared nurses throughout my current healthcare system.
You work to elevate the unseen and amplify the unheard. Tell us about your work to provide mentorship, opportunity and community for nurses of color.
One of our mission pillars is mentorship. Throughout my career, I've learned the value of mentorship and seen that it's literally the key to success in any endeavor. I strive to give people that understanding of the importance of having a mentor. It took me a while to understand the value of mentoring and even how to ask someone to be a mentor.
With our group, we're giving people the tools and confidence to identify people who are aligned with their particular interests and passions. It's critically important for people to have that alignment, which creates that connection and makes the mentorship relationship very fruitful and productive.
Can you talk about the importance of scholarship in nursing?
Another thing that we focus on as a group is amplifying scholarship. As DNP-prepared nurses, we call ourselves the translators of nursing science. Having that skill is important to improve patient outcomes. In addition to mentorship, we give folks the tools and knowledge to amplify their knowledge through scholarship, whether that be through publications, presentations or participation in amazing conferences like AACN's.
We still have a lot of work to do to reduce health inequities and disparities and improve outcomes for patients with diverse backgrounds. How do you respond to nurses and other clinicians who say they don't see color when treating patients?
Nurses have the unique opportunity to serve people of all different backgrounds. We have to acknowledge that we have a long way to go in diversifying not only our profession, so that it meets the needs of diverse communities but also our understanding of that importance.
Engaging in that understanding takes a lot of self-reflection, and so I always charge our nurses and even myself, on a daily basis, to reflect on the opportunities that were afforded to them and how that's created privilege. Then, as you reflect, think about people's humanness and your own humanity and how to center that. That makes it so much more important for you to see that person as a human.
When folks don't acknowledge that race has played a critically important piece in fostering these inequities, that becomes problematic, because we have to acknowledge race. A lot of race-based things that have historically been by design in our country have been very harmful to a lot of communities. We have to recognize that, and we also have to look at ourselves, our own privilege, and how we show up in the care of people who are different from us.
What can AACN do better to improve DEI in healthcare?
My challenge to AACN is to look toward advancing lots of education about antiracism, diversity, equity and inclusion, while also partnering with organizations that are already doing the work. Many times, we reinvent the wheel because we want to create a big shiny initiative. Some organizations, smaller or bigger, have that cultural connection with different communities and can offer support and resources.
Then, support members who are interested in doing some of this work by offering grant funding so that they can implement these initiatives in their communities that they're passionate about.
How do you tell nurses about the importance of joining professional organizations such as AACN and DNPs of Color?
It is vitally important for nurses to be part of nursing organizations. These communities create so many opportunities, not only for professional development but also for mentorship and access to people for sources of inspiration. Being a critical care nurse can be difficult at times, and we often get burned out, so going to organizations like AACN to get your cup refilled is satisfying and gratifying.
Do you have any final thoughts?
I always like to end things with a call to action. I feel like we as nurses have such a huge responsibility to utilize our superpower of being nurses. It's no accident that we've been the most trusted profession for over two decades—aside from a year when firefighters held that honor."
We should really leverage that, advocate for communities that we're passionate about, amplify our voices for people who are not able to speak for themselves, and advance the technology and healthcare knowledge that we have to improve patient outcomes. Use nursing as your superpower. We have a voice, and we should use it."