Ellison Langford

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Ellison Langford is an Emory masters of nursing student. She is passionate about patient education and treating underserved populations. A longtime volunteer with organizations including Girls Rock Camp, Food 4 Life, and Radical Dishes Co-op, she is excited to use her nursing skills to serve even more people. Her favorite experience during nursing school was a public health immersion trip to Moultrie, G.A. During the trip, students provided health screenings for migrant farmworkers and their children. She appreciated the opportunity to provide medical care to people for whom that is often a significant challenge. It was also an excellent opportunity to practice her Spanish.

During nursing school she has taken advantage of additional clinical opportunities beyond the classroom. She has volunteered at Clarkston Community Clinic several times. Clarkston is a low income clinic with a high proportion of patients who are refugees. As a volunteer, Ellison has performed blood draws, taken vital signs, administered COVID-19 vaccines, and translated for Spanish speaking patients. She enjoys volunteering at Clarkston, because it is an opportunity to develop her nursing skills, and gain experience with a wide variety of patients. Ellison has also assisted Assistant Professor Roxana Chicas, PhD, RN, with her research on migrant farmworkers. Ellison created a powerpoint presentation about Dr. Chicas’s research for presentation to the farmworker community by the Florida Farmworkers Association.

Prior to starting nursing school, Ellison worked as a marketing and communications coordinator at the University of Florida. While at UF, she regularly wrote articles about faculty research. As a result, she is very skilled at translating complex medical and scientific topics for lay audiences. It is why she enjoys patient education so much. Ellison enjoys helping patients better understand the relationship between medicine and the body, which empowers how they take charge of their own health.

In her free time, Ellison enjoys reading, quilting, and seeing live music.

My belief about nursing is that nurses need to lead with integrity. This means not charting assessments we didn’t make, ensuring our patients receive the necessary care, and refusing to allow those with seniority to abuse their power. Patients and healthcare workers suffer when people don’t advocate for change. Pushing back can be terrifying, and may incur consequences, but it is essential for improvement.

I strive for growth every day in my nursing practice. Every shift I want to be a better nurse. I want to absorb a new concept, hone a skill, or just become more comfortable performing this work.

Madeleine Leininger’s Culture Care nursing theory supports my nursing practice because it emphasizes cultivating awareness and respect for other cultural values. I think this perspective needs to be expanded beyond the narrow lens of differing cultures, to encompass all the preferences patients might have about treatment. A good nurse realizes it’s not only unethical to force a certain treatment on a patient, they will often be unsuccessful in doing so. Nurses must meet people where they are, and persuade them away from any false or unhealthy points of view by building rapport and gradual education. Respecting patient preferences reflects the critical nursing ethic of autonomy. Every individual deserves the right to have the final say about their care, for better or for worse.