Care for LGBTQIA Communities When Advocacy Is All About Inclusion: A Conversation With Jackie Baras, MSN, MBA, RN

Nurses have the obligation and duty to care for all people (American Nurses Association, 2015), and to treat them with dignity, respect, and compassion (Fowler, 2015). To address equitable care of LGBTQIA people in her community, Jackie Baras, MSN, MBA, RN, serves as LGBT Navigator at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital/RWJBarnabas Health in New Brunswick, New Jersey. As a transgender woman, Jackie advocates as liaison and representative for all LGBTQIA patients and employees, focusing on health promotion and disease prevention, addressing knowledge gaps, and identifying community referrals, while working closely with hospital and clinical leadership to ensure that health-care services are coordinated seamlessly. Here, Jackie discusses her advocacy for equitable care for LGBTQIA communities, and ways nurses can provide culturally congruent care.