Angela Mickens was always conscious of the impact she had on her patients of color. Every time she entered her hospital room or operating room, her patients stared at her in a sea of white faces, their relief visible in her eyes.
As a black woman, Mickens knows all too well the fears and anxieties that black and brown people face when navigating the health care system. She has worked in hospital operating rooms for more than 25 years and is a comforting presence for patients of color, giving them a voice in a situation, many feel they have no control over.
After years of seeing this uncertainty firsthand, the 52-year-old Des Moines native has channeled her passion for helping these patients into efforts outside the operating room, such as a woman of color on the subway. She became a prominent advocate for improving health conditions.
For this accomplishment, Mickens has been named as Des Moines Register’s 2024 People to Watch.
“It’s my calling. At heart, that’s my calling,” she said.
In March 2020 when the pandemic arrived in Iowa, and she saw firsthand the disproportionate impact black and brown communities were feeling from the virus. Nationally, the death rate from COVID-19 for Black Americans in 2020 was twice that of White Americans, according to researchers.
As many members of the black community hesitated to get the new vaccine, Mickens posted a photo of herself getting vaccinated to encourage others to do the same. Posted in the book. She then began hosting COVID-19 vaccine clinics for the congregation at Corinthian Baptist Church in Des Moines, where Mickens is a deacon.
Still, she believed more needed to be done to help other black women.
That’s why she joined black women 4 healthy living, a local organization focused on solving health disparities faced by black women.
Since then, she has become an important figure in the organization’s activities. Other community activists who work closely with her on these efforts say Mickens is trying to make a significant difference in the health outcomes of black women across the Des Moines metro area.
“She’s leading change. She’s not asking for change, she’s leading change, and that’s what makes her so different,” said Leslie Shafer, Executive Director of the North/Central Chapter of American Red Cross Iowa.
Ever since she was a child, Angela Mickens knew she wanted to help care for others.
Mickens was born in Des Moines, but spent her childhood and early adulthood in Memphis, Tennessee.
Mickens earned her Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) certification immediately after graduating from high school and accepted a job at Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis. She said Mickens always knew she would go into the health care field. Ever since she could remember, her grandmother had always told her that she would one day become a doctor because she wanted to help care for others.
She spent the next several years traveling back and forth between Des Moines and Memphis, eventually returning to Des Moines permanently in 1996.
Mickens took a job at what is now MercyOne Des Moines Medical Center, where she trained to become a patient care technician in the surgical department. She worked at Mercy for several years, and in 2006 she landed a job as a patient care technician in the surgical department at Methodist Hospital.
Mickens had long had a goal of attending nursing school, but her plans were put on hold until 2012 as her family grew. She enrolled in Grand View University’s nursing program and took her classes while working night shifts at a hospital.
Ms. Mickens graduated in 2016 with a nursing degree and a bachelor’s degree in theology. Mickens said that a theology professor’s lectures provided her with solace from the stress of nursing school, but she also believes that her religious education has become a valuable tool in her own practice. He also noticed that there were.
“My faith keeps me grounded and focused on my care,” she said. “It doesn’t matter who I take care of.”
Last year, Mickens took on a new role as an infection prevention nurse overseeing operations across UnityPoint Health hospitals in Des Moines.
She works with others to create an organization focused on Black women’s health
Brandi Miller, co-founder of Black Women 4 Healthy Living, named Mickens among the seven members of the startup organization in October 2020, one month after the nonprofit officially launched. I was invited to a board meeting. Miller remembered Mickens as a hard worker when she was a leader in her son’s Boy Scout troop, and she knew her background as a nurse would be a valuable resource. .
“She is truly a co-founder, Miller said. She is one of the builders. She’s one of the people who really helped make that possible. ”
Once a month, the nonprofit hosts the Black Women’s Health Coalition, a free health event coordinated by Mickens that primarily focuses on concerns affecting the health of black women. Mickens conducts monthly medical exams on participants and answers questions about medications and doctor’s orders.
Through these events, Mickens has helped Black women lower their blood pressure, lose weight, and take other steps necessary to address chronic health issues. But more importantly, Mickens gave them advice on how to advocate for themselves and saw them feel more confident in exercising a greater say in their own medical decisions.
“We decided that the health care coalition would look out for women, and if we could educate them, encourage them, and empower them to help them navigate the health care system,” Mickens said. I think women will understand, too.”
Mickens also volunteers with other health-focused nonprofit organizations. As director of the American Red Cross, Mickens is a central figure in the organization’s efforts to spread awareness about sickle cell disease, a genetic disease that disproportionately affects black people, Schaefer said.
Through her association with Black Women 4 Healthy Living, Mickens has been organizing regular blood drives for the past two years to recruit members of the Black community as blood donors. These people are more likely to be compatible with sickle cell patients and are an important source of blood supply.
Slowly but surely, organizers are seeing results, Schaefer said. A blood drive held in September brought in 28 units of blood from various donors, making it the largest and most diverse blood drive ever held in the central region, Schaefer said. he said.
“For two years, I have watched this initiative grow and develop. Personally, I hope to see breakthroughs in 2024,” she said.
Mickens said she plans to continue on this path, coordinating blood drives and helping improve the health and wellness of black women.
“My personal goal is to continue to do my due diligence to find the right people in our community to work with and help, because we know that it is impossible to do this work alone. Because I know that,” she said.
Michaela Lamb is a medical officer at the Des Moines Register. You can contact her at: mramm@registermedia.com(319) 339-7354 or on Twitter @Michaela_Ramm
About Angela Mickens
Year: 52
lifespan: Des Moines
education: 2016 Grand View University Graduate
Career: Infection Prevention Nurse at UnityPoint Health-Des Moines
family: Husband, Clifton Bolden. four biological children, Jessica Moore, 35, Arika Mickens, 30, Eric Mickens Jr., 29, and Zarius Mickens, 25, and one bonus daughter; Sienna Bolden (27 years old). She has six grandchildren.
About the Des Moines Register’s 2024 People to Watch
It is a tradition at the Des Moines Register to end each year and begin the year by introducing our readers to 15 people to watch, the people expected to make an impact in Iowa next year.
This year, we received nearly 60 nominations from readers and journalists, which posed a difficult decision for our staff, who were responsible for narrowing the nominations down to just 15.
The final 15 include people in business and the arts, those training future world-class athletes, cutting-edge chefs, farmers teaching refugees how to run their own farms, and representation through cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. It includes people fighting for We hope you find reading about them as inspirational as we have in profiling them.
