Minority Nurses in the New Century

Minority Nurses in the New Century, organized into three sections, expands on Dr. Bessent's earlier groundbreaking body of work on the ethnic minority nurses. Dr. Bessent has dedicated her professional career to the inclusion of ethnic minority nurses in education, research, and practice and to the development of their leadership skills and opportunities.

In Section 1 of Minority Nurses, Dr. Bessent presents a follow-up to her 2002 survey, Characteristics and Workforce Utilization Patterns of African American, Asian American/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Caucasian and, for the first time, mixed-race RNs. In Section 2, researchers Schuyler Webb, PhD and Juanita Fleming, PhD verify Dr. Bessent's 1997 findings of continuing under-representation of minority nurses and recommend effective strategies and methods for improving minority recruitment and retention by schools of nursing. The third section is a series of critical essays that provide context for the issues of recruitment and retention of racial/ethnic minority nurses raised by the surveys.