Quisha Umemba, MPH, BSN, RN, CDCES, CHWI: Practical Tips for Pivoting into the Nursing Career that you WANT & DESERVE!

Hello there and welcome 2023. Today is January 4th, 2023, and I'm so excited to bring you season 3 of the Nursing Strategies for Success podcast. And here with me on episode 1 of season 3 is the amazing Kwesha Umemba. Kwesha has been a registered nurse for over 15 years, and she's also a public health consultant. She's the CEO of Umemba Health, LLC, and she helps public health organizations and healthcare systems to educate their frontline workforce, empower their leadership, and expand their community presence to elevate the lives of individuals and communities they serve. So let's welcome Kwesha to the show. Welcome to the Nursing Strategies for Success podcast, brought to you by The Nurse Speak, a show where we rally some of our greatest nurse leaders, educators, experts, and advocates to tackle some of our greatest challenges that the nursing profession faces. My name is Damion Jenkins, and I'm your host for this show. So sit back, relax, and get ready to learn that nurses can do anything. All right, Queesha, thank you so much for being on season 3, episode 1 of the Nursing Strategies for Success podcast. I'm so excited to have you here. Why don't you just take a moment and introduce yourself for the listeners? Let them know a little bit about yourself, where you started in nursing, and where you are today.

Wow, that's a loaded question. Hi, Damion Jenkins. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be on season Uh, one of season 3.

Can you believe it? Season 3, it's been so great.

Awesome, awesome. 2023 just started. Um, so my name is Kwesha Omemba. I am a registered nurse. I've been a nurse for 15 years. I tend to forget that because I have not been clinical in about 8 years. Uh, I'm currently, um, joining you from Dallas, Texas. Okay, and I refer to myself as the nurse that got bit by the public health bug. I decided I didn't need 3 nursing degrees a very long time ago and noticed that a lot of doctors had MPH behind their name. And so that intrigued me. Why are all the MDs going to get MPHs? And so I found out what a master's in public health was, decided it would complement my nursing degree very well, and I've been in public health. So, um, some people refer to me as a public health nurse. Again, I forget that I am a nurse, but I am a full-time entrepreneur of 6 months now. I public health education and consulting agency, Umumba Health. We also have a virtual campus, Umumba Health Academy, where we train community health workers, community health worker instructors, and other frontline public health professionals. Ultimately, our goal is to assist public health organizations and healthcare systems to educate their frontline workforce, empower their leadership, and to expand their community presence. And I'm going to stop right there because I'm sure you've got a lot more questions for me. That's just a little snippet.

Wow. So, you know, the first thing that I want to kind of just touch on real quick is I doubt truly that you forget you're a nurse, because I'm pretty sure you use a lot of your nursing skill set to manage all of these amazing things that you're doing, right? The amazing nursing process that we were all taught for that critical thinking and developing those systematic approaches that keep us organized and efficient and proficient and making sure that we're not missing anything when we're really trying trying to look at the big picture. So, you know, I just really want to make sure that everyone understands that no matter how far removed you are from clinical or the bedside, if you are a nurse, you're always a nurse. And we are truly so empowered by what we learn in our nursing training, in any clinical experience that we might pick up.

I'm so glad to hear you say that, Damion, and thank you so much for, for making sure that your listeners understand that. I'll give you a little bit more background information. When I left the bedside and went into public health, my family completely were like, we don't know what she does. You know, when you— when you leave health care, you know, when you leave the bedside and you go start working in public health departments and state health agencies, it's like, we think she's testing water. She might be inspecting restaurants, you know, they— and so I tended to have that kind of association as well, you know, because we, we always identify a nurse as someone that works with patients. Right. So the way that— because I went through withdrawals, I went through withdrawal for about the first 6 months after leaving the bedside, and I finally had to really work on my mindset and said, "Kwesha, you've got a team of 15 now. If you pour into these 15, then they can go out and pour into hundreds in the community." Absolutely. So then I have to look for, you know, I don't care for individual patients, I care for communities at large. Yeah. And that certainly made it much more accepting for me.

Yeah. And so again, you're still being a nurse, right? You're still helping people. You're helping the community in which you live in, the communities in which you serve. And that's ultimately what we want to do as nurses anyway.

Absolutely.

None of us dream of slinging pills all day and holding our bladder for 8 or 9 or 10 hours. But sometimes that comes with the territory wherever we are in the healthcare system. Sometimes we have those crazy days on the unit where we're taking care of people who are hanging on by a thread. And so it's putting their needs first sometimes. But yeah, so don't ever forget, you're always a nurse.

No, you're giving me PTSD.

I'm sorry.

I always—

neither do I, trust me. I've had lots of health issues as it related to some of the stressors that are put on your body, right? So I don't miss that either. But with that being said, so you have 3, if I heard correctly, 3 different business ventures happening right now. Within your— the same wheelhouse of your public health expertise. Is that correct?

Yeah. So I actually— December 31st of 2022, I actually stepped down as the president of the board of directors for a nonprofit that I co-founded called Diversity and Diabetes. So I am also a certified diabetes care and education specialist, used to be called CDE, certified diabetes educator, and really saw a need. I'm really— I think, like, as most nurses, really good at seeing a need and identifying where those gaps are and then finding the solutions for those. And so seeing a need where there needed to be more inclusion, more diversity when it came to the diabetes space.

Yeah.

And giving a voice kind of to the voiceless. So we did— we established Diversity in Diabetes in 2019.

Okay.

That is one way that I'm able to, you know, it's volunteers, non-pay, but it's a way that I fulfill the soul, the good part of me that needs to give and do. Nursing, you know, because like you said, you never leave from being a nurse even if you're not clinical anymore. And then I have Umemba Health, which is my primary business, my, my public health consultancy. And then I've just recently launched QU Consulting, Kwechi Umemba Consulting, where I'm actually helping what I refer to as helping professionals. But this is public health leaders, registered nurses, social workers, anybody that's in that helping spectrum to start and launch their service-based businesses. And I really didn't even know that I had developed a model that was as unique as it is until, you know, I started hearing that. And so, so many people are wanting to get into the public health space, the public health consulting space, and I absolutely love what I, what I do. I've seen some great success early on, and so I'm sharing it with the world right now.

Well, this is amazing. Um, you know, it's so funny that you So you became public health first or nursing first?

I was a nurse first.

Nurse first, then you went into public health. That's, that's so interesting that you did that track because when I was wrapping up my master's degree in nursing education and I had to do my capstone project, right, the paper you have to do, the research, I was very upset and distraught by how few public health organizations had nurses being the ones running them or consulting with them or, you know, doing assessments of their community in which they serve. There were no nurses there. And I was like, where are all the nurses? This doesn't make any sense to me because nursing started in public health. We started in the community and they're nowhere to be found unless they're doing things like what you're doing now. And it's becoming more of a remer— like an emergence of public health and nursing again. But I was just like, I was so confused and at that time, at that time, right? This was 2014 when I was finishing up my master's. So I was like, where are all the nurses in public health? It doesn't make sense to me.

So I finished my master's in 2015, and that's when I got my first job working at Houston Health Department as a chief nurse in the Office of Chronic Disease and Prevention. And I will agree with you, but I can tell you in the last few years, one of the comments that I get that I— or questions rather that I get is why are all the public health positions they're requiring requiring you to have your RN.

Um, so it's changing. Okay, good.

Yes, it is changing now. They're seeing the value—

good—

that registered nurses have when it comes to managing programs, providing health education, overseeing, um, you know, immunizations programs and different things like that. So I would say that there's been some significant changes in the last 8 years with that.

Well, this is a breath of fresh air. I'm so glad that that's happened, and I'm sure the pandemic has also maybe lit a fire under that to get people moving a little bit quicker to help, you know, manage a lot of these, uh, community resources. Because you're right, nurses just— we have the skill set to be able to manage these multifaceted, complex organizational healthcare machines, because that's what we knew anyway. That's what nurses do anyway. Absolutely. So awesome. So, you know, it sounds like you did a big pivot, right? And it sounds like you did a pivot for a reason. So let's talk about what was the catalyst, what was the problem, the challenge? What was it that you saw within your nursing career that made you say, this ain't it and I need to do something different?

Okay, so a couple of things that really stand out to me. One, I, you know, I was a stair-step education person. I had my first son at 19, married. I never had the traditional college experience. I've always worked one or two jobs and went to school. And so It was medical assistant certificate and then my prerequisites for a couple of years and then my associate's and then my bachelor's of nursing. And so by the time I realized, you know, I want to go a little bit further and get my master's, I really wasn't clear on exactly what I wanted to do with my master's. So, you know, at the time I felt like there were really only a couple of options with my master's: teach, which I did not want to do. I will say I am a do as I say not as I do type of nurse. So me leading new grad nurses in a surgical unit and, and something falling on the ground and me blowing it off because of the 3-second rule, like that— we should— does not need to be leading people like that.

Gotcha.

I know I didn't want to teach, right? So I— the MSN, um, you know, I didn't want to get an MSN for that purpose. And then I also knew I didn't want to be a nurse practitioner, did not want to see patients. And I really felt like those mainly the two reasons that people, you know, get an MSN besides going into management.

Yeah, leadership or informatics. Those are the two other professional tracks.

There you go. That's it. And so I knew management was kind of the next step, but I didn't necessarily need an MSN to do management because I knew I would not stay in the hospital. Right. So in my community nursing class, when I was getting my bachelor's, we did what's called a windshield assessment.

Yeah.

Where you drive around and I think it's like a 2-mile or 5-mile radius and you notate all of the things that are public health concerns. It was really my first introduction to the social determinants of health. And I was living in a new— we just bought a home. It was new construction. So there were a lot of things in the area that were missing. It was rural. There were no stop signs. There were no sidewalks. There were no bus stops and all these other things. And it was the first time I really realized, like, everything kind of has to do with public health. And so it was very, very eye-opening for me. So knowing that, you know, I know I'm going to go in leadership of some type of some, you know, field or discipline, but not necessarily needing to be hospital administration. Right. And then learning about the Master's in Public Health and kind of how I can bring— what I can bring to the table there, it kind of really made the decision for me.

Gotcha. Awesome. So, all right. So what challenges have you identified along the way throughout your career path, you know, as a nurse or going through your public health, you know, training, or even after you got your training and you were working in public health, you know, what is a challenge that you've identified that plagues nursing as a profession?

Oh, that's such a good question because you alluded to this in our conversation before we started recording, and it actually is what led me to become an entrepreneur. It was very difficult working in middle leadership, middle management in a public health entity and waiting on levels and layers of approval to get something done.

Yeah.

And so I am a program planner, a program implementer. I would design and develop initiatives for a particular zip code or a particular population, and we'd be ready to go. You know, I got the funding, I got the grant, my people are in place. But we're waiting on signatures, or we're waiting on legal, or we're waiting on this. And so those hiccups that would sometimes derail a program from occurring for months was so frustrating to me. And I know some of the same thing happened in the clinical space as well.

Absolutely. It happens in clinical every day. It takes 6 months to get a new blood pressure machine.

There you go. And I'm very much an ask for forgiveness, not for permission type of person. I'm the type of person that when I see there is a need for individual or for a community, if I've got the resources, I've got the people, I've got what I need to put it in place, let's get it, let's get it to the people that need it right now. And that was, that was the biggest struggle for me, um, just like this mismanagement of resources because we're, um, inundated with, you know, red tape and bureaucracy. And, and so I knew After about 3 years in and working 60 to 70-hour weeks every week and having a nervous breakdown and having to take a 5-week, you know, sabbatical, it was like, if I can do this and see these results and see this success and the outcomes of the community and of our program participants, because at that time I was overseeing a diabetes education program as well. I thought, I know I can do this for myself and, and be just as successful. So those are just a couple of examples, but, um, God, there's probably so many more if I think about them. That's the biggest— it's— yeah, it's really— yeah, go ahead.

No, I think that's excellent because so many of us in the nursing profession, um, whether we're only 6 months in or we've been in for a few years, we are trying to figure out what is the best way that we can pivot or position ourselves to make the impact and elevate our skill set to the point to where we feel like we're actually doing nursing care. We're actually doing what we were meant to do, right? And so if the organizations and systems that are currently in place are not wildly or hastily investing in opportunities to change the way they do things As we can all see, we're leaving those systems, right? We're taking our skill set and we're moving to places where we can leverage our skill set to do the work that we are meant to do.

Absolutely.

And so it sounds like that's what you did.

That's what I did, and I love it. I love every single day.

That's amazing.

Single day in both my nonprofit as well as my consultancy. And I'm seeing the impact, and I'm seeing that it can happen, and I don't second-guess for a moment especially now that I'm on the outside in. I'm still connected to a lot of healthcare organizations and healthcare systems.

Sure.

Because now what you're starting to see is this resurgence or trend or whatever word you want to use, where organizations are now leaning more toward the subcontractor.

Yeah, the consultant.

The consultant. Yes. Even, you know, look at travel nursing, right? All the hospitals want to outsource. And so now I feel like I even have a better impact and don't have to deal with all of the bureaucracy that goes on inside of the organization. So for me, it's a win-win.

Absolutely. All right. So let's talk about some strategies on how you got to where you are, some very, you know, practical tips that people can probably start to work on now. And we'll get into in just a little bit, you know, products or services that you have that might be able to help them and support them along the way. But let's talk about some, you know, maybe just 3 real basic places to start if, if a person is in that situation. And I know a lot of you listening are. Um, what is it that you're gonna do to start moving you to the place where you're gonna find your space of power and make that impact that you want to make?

Yeah, I call it my, my, my position of influence.

Yes.

Um, one, fail. Fail fast. Fail first, fail fast. Um, so Omimba Health is my third attempt at business. Um, and so not that I'm saying that you need to try it three times, but three times was the charm for me. And the reason I say fail is a lot of times people wait until it's perfect.

There's no such thing.

There is— it will never—

if you're thinking it will never happen, it will never ever happen. Correct.

And so, um, now I will admit, you know, the first time I ill-prepared and kind of, you know, just really starting a little bit sooner and didn't do my research. But I started. And I believe that, you know, I'm— I was able to get to the point now where, you know, I do this full time. It's because I have that experience that I put myself out there. I tried and I failed. Right. So that's first and foremost, fail. You know, just start even if you fail. I think another thing that I did when I really decided, okay, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go big or go home.

Is Alexa speaking to you right now?

That's actually Siri from my—

Siri. It's funny, I know Google listens to me all the time. It just popped up on my phone as I just say this. This is the world we live in. We're so connected, right? The internet knows everything we're doing.

So everything. Okay. Anyhow, um, the second thing I would do, and I, and I tell this to, uh, to clients that are just starting out as well, research those job descriptions or those opportunities. So for nurses that are already in consulting, you know, they'll say, "Kwesha, how can I get, you know, a big contract with the CDC-funded organization?" Or, "How can I work with, you know, this healthcare system or, you know, that nonprofit organization?" Start looking at grant or grant funding announcements. Start seeing what the projects are they're asking for, the deliverables that they're asking for, because it gives you an idea of the types of services that you can offer whether it be, you know, the same thing that you do or different, it starts to give you an idea of, okay, maybe I specialize in, you know, diabetes. That's what I'm going to use that. But I could do something very similar with the diabetes program that they're asking for this heart disease grant or whatever that is. The same thing with job descriptions as well. So I researched for a long time what exactly is a public health consultant, what do they do? It looks a lot different from what I do, right? Because what I'm looking at public health consultancies, it's really— it's usually job descriptions from some major consulting agency or something like that. It's a little bit different from what I do as an entrepreneur, but it gave me ideas of what I can do to get started and how to position myself. Um, I'm not going to mention mindset because I only have 3, and I normally mention mindset, which is so important. The other thing that I will mention instead of mindset— but I'm mentioning mindset without mentioning mindset.

I like how you snuck that in there. Yeah.

Um, the, the third thing— oh crap, Damion, I just—

look, it's okay. So while we're on this, um, while we're on mindset without being on mindset, I'll challenge you to give me some kind of resource that I could put in the show notes of this show that helps people with mindset, and then that way I can direct you to your services as well.

Okay, great.

But I would like to offer another opportunity for people to pivot, to find what they maybe can do, right? Because a lot of us initially, you may have felt like this, you may not have, but a lot of us initially, we're not happy with what we see. We know where our hands are tied. There's a lot of red tape. We're waiting forever to get approvals, whether we're at the bedside, we're mid-level management, or even if we're executives, right? Even if we're in the C-suite, everything's so red tape.

Right, right.

But in the meantime, when you're identifying the things that you're not happy with, spend time focusing on the things that you do well, right? Spend time focusing on your strengths. When you can align with your strengths and leverage those strengths to create a product or service based around those strengths, it's honestly effortless at that point.

I love that.

You know, there's a, there's a lot of technical things that we have to get in place if you're trying to do business for yourself, or if you're trying to create a professional brand for yourself so that you're speaking a consistent message so that people hire you for the appropriate jobs, whether you're entrepreneur or you're just trying to work for an organization as an employee. Either way, you need to align with your strengths. You need to know what those are, and you need to showcase them all the time consistently.

Yeah.

Once you have a nice inventory of that the rest is cake. Yeah, because ever since I, like, realized what my strengths were very early in my nursing career, which is education, teaching, curriculum design, streamlining processes, problem solving, right? This is kind of my whole wheelhouse. I've been in every position that has offered me an opportunity to leverage those skills. Yeah, and I have the privilege of picking and choosing which jobs I want, which is nice.

Look at that, that's nice. I mean, everybody doesn't have that. You know, I'm gonna say I'm going to kind of say that's me as well, Damion Jenkins. I lean in, you know, where my— oh, that just— look at there.

There it is.

Lean in. No, that was not the third one.

All right, all right, all right.

The third, the third one was about establishing your platform. Some people refer to it as thought leadership. And so whether you're a nurse on the floor or whether, you know, you're starting your own business, whatever that is, you need to be the go-to for something. And so you just rattled off a whole bunch of strengths strengths and things that people probably know you in the spaces that you work as the go-to for streamlining processes, right? Problem solving, you know, helping nurses pass NCLEX, right? And people know that I'm the go-to when it comes to public health, developing chronic disease programs, curriculum development, you know, the list goes on and on, right? And I think it speaks to what you said, you know, and something that we do in health coaching, we, we kind of use a strength strengths-based approach. It's the same thing as well as you were relating to really playing up on those strengths and those skill sets. And I always tell my clients, like, you can't— you have to claim your expertise for sure, but you have to share it as well. Nobody knows that you're a guru in whatever, you know, you're an expert in unless you actually tell them and share it and write about it and blog about it and talk about it and speak about it and teach about it and all of those different things. So that was my third, and I think just like you said, when you establish yourself as an expert and you share that expertise with the world, then opportunities start coming to you.

Correct.

That's exactly how, um, opportunities have, have come to me in my business, is because, you know, I'm putting myself out there. And I know that I did that when I worked as a floor nurse, when I worked, you know, at the health department. I would put myself out there in those places even when it was scary, because it's always damn scary. Of course, it was uncomfortable, right? Well, the comfort zone is overrated anyway.

Correct.

So if you're out there listening and you've been thinking about, you know, taking the leap or taking a new job or, you know, applying for that management position, if it doesn't scare the hell out of you, you shouldn't be doing it.

It's not— yeah, it's not worth your time because it's not going to help you grow.

It's not going to help you grow. It's not going to help you stretch.

Absolutely. Well, I love all of this. So, you know, you mentioned a few times clients. So it sounds like you help individuals who want to create those service-based businesses or products to develop the skill set that you, trial and error, had to find out over the years that you've been doing this. Um, so if someone wanted to connect with you or maybe even come on board as a new client, if you're taking new clients, how can they find you?

WeShowMemba.com. I'm sure you'll put that in the show notes.

I sure will.

Um, I actually take, um, career professionals as clients as well, so I have a couple of— I call them mentees— um, that I am helping them as they navigate through their professional career and try to climb the ladder. But right now I'm really, really loving helping people that are trying to launch public health consultancies. And again, it doesn't matter what healthcare-related background that you come from. My favorite people to work with are the people that say, Kwesha, I've been a nurse or I've been a doctor or I've been in public health for X amount of years. I have a skill set. I know I can make this work. I just don't know how to do it. I love connecting the dots. I'm like you. I'm a problem solver. I love coming up with ways that people can create innovative solutions, uh, and so those are the best people that I like to work with. So you can find me Kwesha Omemba on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and kweshaomemba.com is my website.

Perfect. Awesome. So I will definitely have all of the ways that people connect with you in the show notes of this episode. And Kwesha, I am so excited to have you in my corner, in my network of amazing educators who are doing incredible work work. Um, I've been following you for a little bit of time now. We've recently been introduced at the last half of 2022, and I am just so excited to see you continue to grow and make impact. And, you know, I'm definitely looking forward to learning a thing or two from you as well, because I believe educators always need to keep learning.

Absolutely, I agree. Thank you so much for having me, Damion.

My pleasure. It was wonderful, and we'll be in touch soon. Take care.

Take care.

And there you have it, folks, the end of episode 1 of season 3 of the Nursing Strategies for Success podcast with this week's guest, Kwesha Umembwa. All of the ways to connect with Kwesha will be in the show notes of this episode. We hope that everything that we shared for you will provide you with the strategies that that you need to pivot into the career path that you want and that you deserve. As always, if you have any questions regarding anything that we shared in this podcast, please visit thenursespeak.com/contact and get in touch with me. I would love to have a conversation with you. So until next episode, take care, be well, and remember that nurses can do anything.

Dang.