Robert Davila
Informatics & Public Health Nurse
Robert Davila was born in Southern California to Mexican immigrant parents. He was the first in his family to receive a bachelor’s degree (BA in psychology) and is fluent in both Spanish and English. At the time of receiving this degree, he did not know how it would fit into his career goals; he received little guidance from his family when it came to his career, who had no experience in pursuing higher education. He later received a bachelor’s degree in nursing in pursuit of caring for the whole person — mind, body and spirit. He fell in love with the field and found a passion for mental health, public health, and informatics. He believes coming from a lower socioeconomic background allowed him to gain insight into factors that can help underserved communities.
With his first undergraduate degree in psychology, he enjoyed learning about the human psyche and began to comprehend people’s motivations, and how experiences, genetics, temperament, and upbringing shaped an individual. When he decided to pursue a degree in nursing, the foundation of studying psychology helped him. He will always remember a specific experience that occurred during his Emergency Department clinical rotation. A classmate was complaining about a patient’s behaviors and use of drugs. He explained to his nursing classmate that they were there to provide care for this individual and that they did not know what experiences had led this individual to substance abuse. Rather than having a judgmental attitude toward patients from this moment on he made a commitment to meet clients where they were, with compassion and nonjudgmental, caring attitude. He believes this experience encouraged him to become a more understanding person. He immediately shifted his focus from “What’s wrong with you?” to “What happened to you?” He believes this transformation in perspective allowed him to see past the issues and truly care for individuals and facilitate their healing.
Robert began his nursing career at Arrowhead Regional Medical Center where he gained experience working in an inpatient psychiatric-mental health unit. Wanting to make more of an impact in his community, he transitioned into a role working as a public health nurse and provides public health nursing assessments and consultation services to Child Protective Services emergency social workers and case managers. He also monitors foster children on psychotropic medications and those who are medically at risk in the foster care system.
Nurses need to lead the transition of AI becoming a powerful force in healthcare, as they have the clinical knowledge and insight into what is essential to help patients.
Within public health, he quickly developed a knack for tech projects, managing and creating databases. He is currently constructing a database for public health resources and increased interagency collaboration for the Department of Public Health of San Bernardino. The topics of artificial intelligence, machine learning and digital health intrigue him. He knows AI will be a fundamental paradigm shift and will be at the core of healthcare going forward. To meet this transition head on, he will be starting a data science/analyst boot-camp this September and a Master of Science in Nursing Informatics from Western Governor’s University in October. He hopes to bridge the gap between available technology with his knowledge of working on the front lines of public health so he can improve outcomes of underserved communities.
Sources
We sourced the above information from Robert 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
- American Association for the History of Nursing to attend monthly webinars on topics of nursing history, view the calendar here.
- Nursing CLIO to engage with historians and scholars committed to deep work around historical accuracy in healthcare and nursing.
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.
Support & Advocate
- National Coalition for Ethnic Minority Nurse Association to stay engaged with topics relevant to nurses of color.
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