Hidden Gems: Meet Mona Clayton, MSN, RN, CEO of The Nurses Pub

Today we’d like to introduce you to Mona Clayton, MSN, RN, CEO.

Hi Mona, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
While I was a nursing student, I found that being a single parent had many challenges. Finding childcare, ensuring that my daughter was successful in school, getting transportation to and from school and keeping up with extracurricular activities proved to be one of the most difficult obstacles. When I started working as a registered nurse, many of the medical assistants, receptionists and patients would ask how to become a nurse and expressed their desires to become one. People of diverse cultures were particularly interested in becoming nursing professionals because I am an African American nurse. A friend of mine witnessed the need for me to help support individuals wanting to become nurses; in particular single mothers. My friend encouraged me to write a book, “From Student To Nurse-Surviving The Journey As Painlessly As Possible,” a self-published inspirational guide to help build a roadmap for success for future nurses and “Nurses Roc 2 Publishing” was developed.

After several years of providing workshops, seminars, panel discussions, literature and activewear to motivate future nurses, I thought that my efforts for attracting a global community of nurses would become more prominent by starting a non-profit organization, “The Nurses Pub.” At The Nurses Pub, our mission is to ‘Inspire, Empire, and Develop A Global Community of Nurses.”

A worldwide campaign was initiated to attract 100,000 future nurses. This campaign spread to parts of Ghana, Jamaica, Liberia and Kenya by way of Facebook. Many students in the USA and parts of Africa have started the nursing journey or have completed the journey towards a successful nursing career with our unique outreach efforts. We provide scholarship support, mentoring, online webinars, resume support, tutoring and human resource support to help students along the way.

Currently, I advocate for future nurses as “An Uncommon Remedy To Empower The Next Generation of Nurses.” I provide inspiration and motivation through speaking engagements, webinars, seminars, and an annual gala presented by “The Nurses Pub” which brings awareness for the need to support future nurses and to provide scholarships. I am also working with underserved youth in the Los Angeles area that attends schools within the Los Angeles Unified School District. “The Nurses Pub Club-After School Program” enriches the lives of minority high school students seeking to break into any medical profession. The premise behind this program is to share cultural capital for students from a variety of experts and mentors.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Of course, anything of value comes with obstacles and challenges. My first day of the nursing program started with the end of my marriage and driving from The Los Angeles Divorce Court to transform from a newly divorced single parent to a first-semester nursing student that evening.

Becoming a single parent while in a nursing program posed many obstacles financially. Working full-time at night and enduring nursing school required mental and physical challenges. While in school, my grandmother died and that was a major time of sadness during the clinical hands-on requirement. Nursing school is either pass or a fail with only two chances to make it; so I had to forgo the grieving process and again transform from grieving to passing the program and taking care of patients.

As you know, we’re big fans of The Nurses Pub. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
The Nurses Pub is a non-profit organization developed in 2018 to help support disadvantaged students, minority students and single parents in need of career development. Our mission is to cultivate future nurses by providing impactful success strategies for economically challenged individuals, youth, young adults and single parents in search of a career and economic development through “The Art of Nursing.”

The Nurses Pub delivers a nontraditional approach for supporting students with innovative events such as “Mix and Mentor Empower Hour.” We are a global organization attracting students throughout the country which sets us apart from others. Our focus is to provide resources that the typical nursing program does not offer. We are projected to build a resource center which helps support single parents needing provisions for resources to offset their current nursing curriculum.

Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
I have learned many interesting and important lessons during my time as a travel nurse while caring for COVID-19 patients at the bedside. I learned that nurses are highly significant in a crisis situation and there is a great need to increase the nursing population. I also learned that without nursing staff during the crisis, hospitals and clinics cannot operate. I became more aware of what nurses are made of; compassion, a team player mentality, intellect, critical thinking skills, empathy, logic, endurance and multitasking.

Currently, The Nurses Pub is in partnership with The California Department of Health (CDPH) to provide free Covid testing for individuals experiencing homelessness and in need of free medical services. The Nurses Pub is more involved in the aftermath of the crisis by educating the public, and providing awareness and PPE supplies.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thenursespub.org / www.theonlynursemona.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thenursespub/professional_dashboard/insights/page/?ref=comet_direct_url_navigation
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/thenursesremedy/professional_dashboard/insights/page/?ref=profile_action