Jocelyn Alvarez Allgood
Nurse Researcher & Journalist
In the early 1970s, the United States was experiencing a nursing shortage. Like other hospitals at that time, Baylor University Medical Center (BUMC) aimed to address the shortage by recruiting nurses from abroad. Nurses were recruited from seven countries, including the Philippines. Concurrent to this period of U.S. nursing shortage, there was increased political and economic turmoil in the Philippines under the rule of President Marcos who had enacted martial law from 1972–1981 and remained in power until he was exiled in 1986.
Jocelyn Alvarez Allgood graduated from University of Santo Tomas nursing school in the Philippines in 1978 and arrived to work at BUMC in 1982. She is recorded as a saying that her mother chose the nursing profession for her, believing that it would be her ticket to America for a better life and increased opportunities. She described her inspiration to come to specifically to BUMC after reading about the heart surgery performed on a Philippines senator:
Baylor was where Senator Ninoy Aquino — President Marcos’ nemesis — would have his heart surgery. The way the newspaper described Baylor and Dallas ignited a passion in me that carried me halfway around the world…[When she arrived] I had to prove to everyone that I was just as good as the American nurses. I worked hard for the patients, doctors, and coworkers to trust me, and eventually they did.
Allgood completed her Bachelor’s in Journalism in 1993 and her Master’s in Management in 2013. After nearly 20 years at the bedside in labor and delivery, diabetes, and medical/surgical, she transitioned to a role as a senior research nurse at University of Texas in 2002 and has held a variety of analyst roles in operations, documentation, and medical policy. Among her numerous publications, she authored Filipino Nurses at Baylor University Medical Center: Personal Recollections which was published in 2001 to share the stories of 28 Filipino nurses who came to BUMC over the decades and how they adjusted to new climate, weather, food, culture, and language / accent acclimation. In 2020 she leveraged her clinical research nursing to participate in Operation Warp Speed as a clinical research nurse where she was a part of the COVID-19 vaccine research that gave the AstraZeneca vaccine to military personnel and their dependents at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, TX. She is an American Red Cross volunteer, a member of the Society of Professional Journalists and Kappa Tau Alpha, and an active member in community theater.
Further Reading:
Watch Jocelyn’s Nurses You Should Know Video here.
Read more about nursing education in the Philippines here.
Learn about the Philippine Nurse Association of America here.
View the touching tribute to the Philippine healthcare workers who have died in the pandemic here.
To support Asian Americans for Equality, click here.
Sources
Taylor & Francis Group and CenterTimes Plus.
Learn More
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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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