Milagros Elia
Environmental Health Activist, APRN, & Nurse Entrepreneur
Milagros Elia was born, raised and lived most of her early adult life in the “Washington Heights” neighborhood of Manhattan. Growing up there during her formative years in the 1970s, she routinely witnessed wide scale systemic racial injustices and saw first hand how the lack of resources and health inequities negatively impacted the predominately Black and Hispanic community. The older she became, the more determined she was to find a career that allowed her to participate in the health and advocacy of individuals and communities, which led her to pursue a career in nursing.
Milagros’ first job after graduating with her Bachelor’s of Nursing was as a registered nurse working at a long-term care and rehab facility caring for the elderly. From there she began to work on an inpatient oncology unit at a major hospital in New York City and found she loved working with this population. Over the next two decades, she continued to work with cancer patients and survivors in various capacities, both in institutional and community settings. In 2001 she received her Master’s of Nursing from New York University and became a Board Certified Adult Nurse Practitioner in order to gain more authority and autonomy in her patient care.
My professional passions include advocating against environmental injustices and health inequities facing many under-resourced and marginalized BIPoC communities today.
In 2019, Milagros was appointed as the “Health Policy Liaison” by the Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) for New York’s Hudson Valley. In this capacity, she has worked closely with ONS leadership to lobby legislators to advocate for the rights, treatment options and care goals of cancer survivors. She currently serves as a member of the Patient Advocacy Committee at the Society for Integrative Oncology. She is also an active member of Alliance of Nurses for Healthy Environments (AHNE), Planetary Health Alliance, and is a certified “Climate for Health Ambassador” through EcoAmerica, working to educate and raise awareness on the impact of climate change on patient care. She also added environmental health education to her nursing background when she launched her business in 2020. M. Elia Wellness focuses on offering education workshops and program development services to organizations about how to implement sustainable nature-based solutions that restore, mange, and help to protect their local community’s health and natural ecosystem.
It would be my wish that as patient advocates, nurses begin to feel supported right from the beginning of their educational process — and throughout their careers — to speak out against climate injustices that affect the communities they love and serve. As a whole, my hope is that moving forward, the nursing profession begins at the undergraduate level and embraces a universally standardized curriculum that includes the impact of climate change on human health.
Further Resources
View Milagros’ Nurses You Should Know Video here.
Sources
We sourced the above information from Milagros Elias 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 offers live zoom sessions with fellow nurses on nursing’s overdue reckoning on racism and a page to sign their pledge.
- Breaking Bias in Healthcare is 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
- Critical Conversation on Health Equity and Racism Toolkit from the American Academy of Nursing
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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