Jessica Brown
Oncology DNP & Children’s Book Author
Note: Dr. Brown’s Kickstarter to translate her book to Spanish & donate copies to families affected by health disparities is open through 10/30/21.
Dr. Jessica Brown was born in Boston, Massachusetts and raised in Connecticut. She was inspired to pursue a career in nursing after hearing the stories from her great aunt who, born in 1922, had been the first African American to graduate from her nursing class at McCook Hospital School in Hartford, Connecticut. Dr. Brown’s nursing career started with her being awarded a scholarship in 2001 that honored the historic St. Philip School of Nursing. Founded in 1920, the St. Philip School of Nursing was an all Black nursing school that later merged with Virginia Commonwealth University School Of Nursing in 1962. This scholarship enabled her to experience life on a Southern university campus. To her surprise, despite now being a third generation African American nursing student, she walked by a confederate flag daily in Richmond as part of the Museum of the Confederacy (which closed in 2018). Her first role as a nurse after graduating with her Bachelor’s degree in 2004, was on a transplant unit in Virginia where she cared for kidney, pancreas, or liver transplant patients in preparation of, or following, their transplant surgery.
She quickly realized her passion for the transplant patient population. Her next role in transplant brought her to Georgetown University, followed by transplant travel nurse roles in Maryland, Arizona, and New York, before she accepted a permanent outpatient nurse transplant coordinator role in New York City. After working for a decade in transplantation, she decided to further her education at New York University where she obtained her Master’s of Nursing to become an Adult Geriatric Nurse Primary Care Nurse Practitioner in 2014. In 2015 she transitioned to her first nurse practitioner role in oncology at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and shortly after married her husband.
When Dr. Brown became pregnant with her daughter, she thought maternity leave might be the chance to begin a hybrid DNP program at Sacred Heart University. Pursuing her doctorate degree enabled her to take on numerous adjunct educator roles at local nursing schools. By the time she graduated in 2019, she and her husband had now also welcomed their son. Watching her children grow up, she looked for opportunities to read them inclusive children’s books and mitigate childhood health disparities, which she had witnessed first hand throughout her career. Her passion for health equity motivated her to launch her own independent publishing company, Boundless Butterfly Press, to promote health and wellness and highlight diversity. Her first title, Gabby Chooses a Healthy Snack, is named for her daughter and the plot walks a kindergartener through the process of choosing a healthy snack at the store for $1. Her second title of the series, Gabby and the Beautiful Brown Butterfly, is planned for subsequent release. Dr. Brown’s future goals consist of publishing additional children’s literature on various health topics in efforts to improve health equity and spotlighting the work of other healthcare-oriented authors.
View Dr. Brown’s Nurses You Should Know Video here.
Support her Kickstarter stretch goals here through Oct. 30th, 2021.
Sources
The information above was sourced from Dr. Jessica Brown and LinkedIn.
Learn More
To learn more about inclusion in nursing and be part of the national discussion to address racism in nursing, check out and share the following resources:
Know Your History
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
Examine Bias
- NurseManifest to attend live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism or to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare, an online course created by scientist Anu Gupta, to learn how bias is related to our brain’s neurobiology and can be mitigated with mindfulness.
- Revolutionary Love Learning Hub provides free tools for learners and educators to use love as fuel towards ourselves, our opponents, and to others so that we can embody a world where we see no strangers.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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