ANAC is proud to have a diverse group of people as members and we want to celebrate their contributions to the HIV/AIDS community. Each month, we celebrate various meaningful awareness days and heritage months by highlighting current members who work to end stigma, train future HIV/AIDS healthcare providers, pursuing research opportunities, advocating for people living with HIV and so much more. Check out our 2022 and 2023 member features. Would you like to be featured or would like to recommend a colleague? Complete this short form.

2024
February

Black History Month and National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (Feb 7): Alanna Bergman, PhD (c), MSN, AGNP-BC, RN (She/Her) and Ikenna O. Odii, MSC, BSN (He/Him)

March

Women's Month and National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (March 10):  Rasheeta Chandler, PhD, ARNP, FNP-BC, FAANP, FAAN (She/Her)

Certified Nurses Day (March 19): Message from Robin Hardwicke, PhD, FNP-C, AACRN, FAANP

Social Work Month - D. Scott Batey, PHD, MSW (He/Him)

April

National Transgender HIV Testing Day (April 18): Message from Anthony Velasco, PhD, CNP, ACRN

May

National Nurses Week (May 6-12)
Each year, National Nurses Week is May 6-12. The theme for this year is "Nurses Make the Difference," spotlighting the diverse roles of nurses and our positive impact on the lives of our patients. Each day this week, we are featuring a book that highlights a special aspect of nursing. The seven books we have chosen, from more than 25 recommended by ANAC board and staff members, reflect the core values of ANAC: Knowledge, Collaboration, Diversity, Advocacy and Support.

May 6: Taking Care: The Story of Nursing and Its Power to Change Our World by Sarah DiGregorio - Sarah DiGregorio chronicles the lives of nurses past and tells the stories of those today—caregivers at the vital intersection of health care and community who are actively changing the world. Fascinating, empowering and significant, it is a love letter to the nurses of yesterday, today and tomorrow.

May 7: The House on Henry Street: The Enduring Life of a Lower East Side Settlement by Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier - Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier chronicles Nurse Lillian Wald's journey founding Henry Street Settlement and its sweeping history from 1893 to today. From the fights for public health and immigrants’ rights that fueled its founding, to advocating for relief during the Great Depression, all the way to tackling homelessness and AIDS in the 1980s, and into today - Henry Street has been a champion for social justice, founded by an inspirational nurse. Its powerful narrative illuminates larger stories about poverty, human rights and who is “worthy” of help.

May 8: The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives by Theresa Brown, RN - The Shift is one nurse's story, but it contains elements of every nurse's experience. Practicing nurse and New York Times columnist Theresa Brown invites us to experience a day in the life of a nurse working on a hospital's busy cancer ward. In the span of twelve hours, patients' lives can be lost, life-altering medical treatment decisions made, and dreams fulfilled or irrevocably stolen. Brown gives an unprecedented view into individual struggles as well as larger truths about medicine in this country, hope, healing and humanity.

May 9: The Black Angels: The Untold Story of the Nurses Who Helped Cure Tuberculosis by Maria Smilios - In the early 20th century, TB stirred people’s darkest fears, killing one in seven. White nurses at Sea View, New York’s largest municipal hospital, began quitting en masse. Desperate to avert a public health crisis, city officials recruited Black southern nurses, luring them with promises of good pay and career. For twenty years, they risked their lives working under appalling conditions, caring for New York’s poorest residents. But despite their major role in desegregating the New York City hospital system—and their vital work in helping to find the cure for tuberculosis at Sea View—these nurses were completely erased from history. The Black Angels recovers the voices of these extraordinary women, celebrating their legacy and spirit of survival.

May 10: Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s by Jennifer Worth - The book that sparked the award-winning TV series details Jennifer Worth's very real experiences as a young midwife based in a convent amid the chaos of post-war London Docklands. Her true-life stories show how tough conditions were in the East End, especially for women, who often lived in slum accommodation - grateful if they had a cold-water tap - with ten or more children to look after.

May 11: Healing Wounds: A Vietnam War Combat Nurse's 10-Year Fight to Win Women a Place of Honor in Washington, D.C. by Diane Carlson Evans - What is the price of honor? It took ten years for Vietnam War nurse Diane Carlson Evans to answer that question. Her impassioned story of serving in Vietnam is a crucial backstory to her fight to honor the women she served beside. She details the gritty and high-intensity experience of being a nurse in the midst of combat and becomes an unlikely hero who ultimately serves her country again as a formidable force in her daunting quest for honor and justice for nurses.

May 12: The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story by Christie Watson - Christie Watson spent twenty years as a nurse, and in this intimate, poignant and remarkably powerful book, she opens the doors of the hospital to share with readers that through the smallest of actions, nurses provide vital care and kindness. All of us will experience illness in our lifetime, and we will all depend on the support and dignity that nurses offer us; yet the women and men who form the vanguard of our health care remain unsung. In this age of fear, hate and division, Christie Watson has written a book that reminds us of all that we share and of the urgency of compassion.

National Asian and Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (May 19): Chakra Budhathoki, PhD (He/Him)

Coming later this year!

June

National HIV Testing Day (June 27)
Pride!

July

Zero HIV Stigma Day (July 21)

August

Southern HIV/AIDS Awareness Day (Aug. 20)

September

National HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day (Sept. 18)

National Gay Men's HIV/AIDS and Aging Awareness Day (Sept 27)

Hispanic Heritage Month and National Latinx AIDS Awareness Day (Sept - Oct)

December 

World AIDS Day (Dec 1)