Eileen Quinn
April 2024
Eileen
Leenie
Quinn
,
BSN, RN
The National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities
Chicago, IL
United States
She has worked to create systemic improvements and change nationally on behalf of NOND to increase the accountability, acceptance, and inclusion of nursing students and nurses with disabilities while increasing nurse educator and employer awareness.
Eileen (Leenie) is in good standing as a member of the NOND (The National Organization of Nurses with Disabilities) Board of Directors and is highly respected by past and current Directors. She demonstrates strong ethical values and trustworthiness and follows through with her NOND assignments. She has a wonderful sense of humor, is compassionate and caring, and is a nurse that anyone would want to and enjoy working with. She is strongly supportive of the NOND mission, and as a board member has provided outreach to nurse educators and students with disabilities across the United States.
Shortly after Leenie joined the NOND board, she was recruited to travel to Washington, DC to join a NOND executive leader to attend an in-person Annual Meeting held by the National Disability Leadership Alliance (NDLA), of which NOND is a member. NDLA is a coalition of eighteen national cross-disability organizations that work in collaboration directed to national policy impacting people with disabilities of all ages. This was Eileen’s opportunity to gain experience and to better understand the advocacy side of NOND’s mission, and after this meeting she joined monthly conference calls with Alliance members as NOND’s representative.
When NOND was contacted by a nurse educator, the educator requested assistance in helping a student learn how to perform clinical tasks as the student experienced challenges using one hand. Eileen stepped up! It is Eileen’s PASSION and self-determination directed to the mission of NOND, which was a result of her own personal experience as a nursing student with a disability, that has impacted her motivation to provide outreach through education and advocacy directed to nurse educators and students and nurses with disabilities.
Eileen’s willingness to follow up and provide outreach to assist the nurse educator and student by sharing how she performs clinical tasks one-handed resulted in her creating videos. She creatively produced the videos, at times utilizing the resources and/or availability of her employer, recruited assistance from other nurses with whom she worked, and scripted, developed, and produced the videos at no cost to NOND.
In addition to working a full-time nursing position, volunteering for NOND, and assuming family responsibilities, Eileen dedicates time to NOND BEYOND what would be expected from a director. Her videos on how to perform clinical tasks one-handed are available on NOND website, www.nond.org and on YouTube. NOND had no idea at the time the number of nursing students who have paralysis, have strength or mobility limitations in an arm or hand, or are missing a limb until Eileen began producing videos. Eileen’s videos have become well-known nationwide, and some nurses internationally have viewed her videos. What she has succeeded in doing is to open doors to nursing students with disabilities by demonstrating what is possible and unique to her own disability. Leenie never wants any nursing student to experience what she did when she was forced to withdraw from a nursing program based on disability. The passion she feels and the time she has given to NOND have proved to be a driving force to improve the inclusion of students with disabilities in nursing.
Eileen demonstrates best practices in education and employment by promoting EQUITY for disabled student nurses and nurses with disabilities, and those that have chronic health conditions by providing video resources, and one-to-one contact with individual nurse educators, to nursing school administrators, nursing students and nurses with disabilities and employers.
She has worked to create systemic improvements and change nationally on behalf of NOND to increase the accountability, acceptance, and inclusion of nursing students and nurses with disabilities while increasing nurse educator and employer awareness. Leenie personifies NOND’s themes, which are NOND is the Voice of Disability in Nursing and “Nothing About Us Without Us!”
Eileen has contributed her extraordinary creative talents and expertise in a variety of ways as a NOND Director. For example, she has suggested that a “National Students and Nurses with Disabilities Day” be proclaimed once a year. As a result, one of NOND’s Advisors who designs accessible art has created a poster that reflects Leenie’s idea.
As a role model Director who participates in educational webinars for NOND, she openly shares her story of the challenges and successes she has experienced. Eileen’s leadership and actions have positively impacted many of NOND’s constituents, who represent a cross-disability and disability-specific population that may have experienced challenges and ableism themselves. She assists nurse educators in developing solutions that have enhanced the successful matriculation of disabled nursing students through clinicals, as well as enhanced their performance once they have graduated, received their license to practice, and secured employment. As NOND’s first Honoree for the DAISY Health Equity Award, NOND could never have selected a better nurse/director for this honor.
Shortly after Leenie joined the NOND board, she was recruited to travel to Washington, DC to join a NOND executive leader to attend an in-person Annual Meeting held by the National Disability Leadership Alliance (NDLA), of which NOND is a member. NDLA is a coalition of eighteen national cross-disability organizations that work in collaboration directed to national policy impacting people with disabilities of all ages. This was Eileen’s opportunity to gain experience and to better understand the advocacy side of NOND’s mission, and after this meeting she joined monthly conference calls with Alliance members as NOND’s representative.
When NOND was contacted by a nurse educator, the educator requested assistance in helping a student learn how to perform clinical tasks as the student experienced challenges using one hand. Eileen stepped up! It is Eileen’s PASSION and self-determination directed to the mission of NOND, which was a result of her own personal experience as a nursing student with a disability, that has impacted her motivation to provide outreach through education and advocacy directed to nurse educators and students and nurses with disabilities.
Eileen’s willingness to follow up and provide outreach to assist the nurse educator and student by sharing how she performs clinical tasks one-handed resulted in her creating videos. She creatively produced the videos, at times utilizing the resources and/or availability of her employer, recruited assistance from other nurses with whom she worked, and scripted, developed, and produced the videos at no cost to NOND.
In addition to working a full-time nursing position, volunteering for NOND, and assuming family responsibilities, Eileen dedicates time to NOND BEYOND what would be expected from a director. Her videos on how to perform clinical tasks one-handed are available on NOND website, www.nond.org and on YouTube. NOND had no idea at the time the number of nursing students who have paralysis, have strength or mobility limitations in an arm or hand, or are missing a limb until Eileen began producing videos. Eileen’s videos have become well-known nationwide, and some nurses internationally have viewed her videos. What she has succeeded in doing is to open doors to nursing students with disabilities by demonstrating what is possible and unique to her own disability. Leenie never wants any nursing student to experience what she did when she was forced to withdraw from a nursing program based on disability. The passion she feels and the time she has given to NOND have proved to be a driving force to improve the inclusion of students with disabilities in nursing.
Eileen demonstrates best practices in education and employment by promoting EQUITY for disabled student nurses and nurses with disabilities, and those that have chronic health conditions by providing video resources, and one-to-one contact with individual nurse educators, to nursing school administrators, nursing students and nurses with disabilities and employers.
She has worked to create systemic improvements and change nationally on behalf of NOND to increase the accountability, acceptance, and inclusion of nursing students and nurses with disabilities while increasing nurse educator and employer awareness. Leenie personifies NOND’s themes, which are NOND is the Voice of Disability in Nursing and “Nothing About Us Without Us!”
Eileen has contributed her extraordinary creative talents and expertise in a variety of ways as a NOND Director. For example, she has suggested that a “National Students and Nurses with Disabilities Day” be proclaimed once a year. As a result, one of NOND’s Advisors who designs accessible art has created a poster that reflects Leenie’s idea.
As a role model Director who participates in educational webinars for NOND, she openly shares her story of the challenges and successes she has experienced. Eileen’s leadership and actions have positively impacted many of NOND’s constituents, who represent a cross-disability and disability-specific population that may have experienced challenges and ableism themselves. She assists nurse educators in developing solutions that have enhanced the successful matriculation of disabled nursing students through clinicals, as well as enhanced their performance once they have graduated, received their license to practice, and secured employment. As NOND’s first Honoree for the DAISY Health Equity Award, NOND could never have selected a better nurse/director for this honor.