<body><div><figure><img src="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?type=thumbnail_580x000&amp;url=2knXO7_13QIHclh00" alt="https://img.particlenews.com/image.php?url=2knXO7_13QIHclh00" width="731" height="628" ><figcaption>Photo courtesy of Dr. Maria Munoz-Bramhall</figcaption></figure>Before Dr. Maria Muñoz-Bramhall became a family medicine physician and medical educator, she built her foundation in the trenches of healthcare as a registered nurse. Born in Mexico and immigrating to the United States at 11, she understood firsthand the challenges faced by marginalized communities in healthcare settings. After graduating from Rutgers University with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, she worked across multiple specialties including medical-surgical units, pediatrics, psychiatry, and telemetry.Her hands-on experience in these demanding environments taught her invaluable lessons about listening, advocacy, and the power of small gestures in patient care. This bedside experience, combined with her cultural background and bilingual abilities, shaped her approach to medicine long before she pursued her master’s in Family Nurse Practitioner from the University of Southern Mississippi and eventually earned her medical degree from the International University of Health Sciences in St. Kitts.You wore many hats in nursing. What are the top three lessons that you learned on the hospital floor as a nurse that shaped how you care today?The top three lessons that I learned is the power of listening. Being at the bedside told me that patients often reveal the most important information to us when they feel trusted, when they trust us. Even during those busy visits, it can catch subtle concerns and make all the difference in diagnosis and trust built in. It also taught me that small actions matter, whenever they ask me for like a warm blanket, a glass of water and or pain medication, I brought them right away. This could shift the patient’s experience, and in the outpatient care, follow up calls, clear instructions or if I promise them that I’m going to call them whenever the results came back and I call them. All of this stuff builds long lasting relationships. Patients often remember how I make them feel, not just what I prescribe, that feeling they had when I call them, well, you took the time to actually call me in your busy schedule.Team work is also essential, nurses coordinate care with dietary, with the pharmacy, with the social work to promote healing in the hospital, and no one works in isolation, we all need the help. And in family medicine, embracing collaboration is actually important because I need my medical assistant to make sure that they’re rooming my patients in a timely manner. I need the specialist, the cardiologist, behavioral health, whatever it is that they need, whatever it is that I need in order for them to help my patients. So everyone is important, everyone’s voice is valued.You worked in pediatrics and mental health. What made you recognize what patients need the most in these situations, and how did you gain trust from these groups as a nurse?As a nurse, a lot of the children, I feel like they feel all the experience, microaggressions or cultural invalidation without having the language to explain it, without being able to express their feelings. Being an adult who makes sure that we create the space for their experiences without minimizing or dismissing them, for instance, telling them your feelings make sense, your culture and voice matters here. Also, the need for safe spaces to express emotions without judgment. Emotional expression in some communities of color have historically been met with stigma or misunderstanding. For instance, we tell them, toughen up or stay quiet, you can’t voice your opinion. These children often need permission to feel like it’s okay to cry. It’s okay to worry, it’s okay to be angry or struggle without fear of being labeled as you’re difficult, you’re disrespectful, you’re not listening. And this will actually help other caregivers like that.What is this behavior behind it rather than just correcting it? What is driving their behavior? Instead of just saying, you are just being difficult, we can’t help you.What were some of the three biggest challenges you faced as a bilingual woman of color in the hospital environment?Bias, being underestimated, mistaken for a nurse or are you coming to draw my blood? It’s often one of the ones that I actually still face. But staying grounded in my competence, knowing that my knowledge skills and training speak louder than assumptions, using calm correction, for instance, no, ma’am, no, sir, I am the doctor for your team today. It’s always important for me. Communication is another one, being judged for my accent or communication style, even when my medical knowledge is strong. However, making sure that I prioritize clarity and confidence and speech over perfection. Making sure that my ability as a bilingual is a strength, not a deficit or a flaw. The pressure to prove myself constantly that I feel like I need to work twice as hard, because otherwise I’m not going to be good enough and setting internal standards for myself, instead of external standards, that will help me succeed in the future. Celebrate small wins.For instance, when I have all my patients or my patients greeting me as a doctor and also acknowledging how far I’ve come, it’s important. And using resilience as a tool and not as a burden.What are two things that patients may not realize about how emotionally heavy the work is as nurses?Nurses absorb a lot of emotional pain. Nurses witness grief, frustration, suffering daily on the floor. We often carry it silently to stay strong for others. We feel like if bad news happens to be delivered that day and they’re crying, we just need to be the shoulder for them to cry instead of crying with them.But often they don’t understand that we need to let our feelings out too, making sure that we go into a break room and quiet tears are coming down or at least a hug from somebody else is always important. The work is physically and mentally demanding, long hours, a lot of the time on our feet, lifting patients, managing alarms, responding to crises if somebody coded and we all have to go there, often with no breaks. Often with not eating enough or not <a href="https://rollingout.com/2025/06/26/weight-diet-destroyed-metabolism/">eating</a> our meals when we need to. Constantly multitasking, like tracking medications, monitoring vital signs, advocating with other doctors and making sure that we’re catching potential errors. The mental load is invisible but heavy and the need to always stay alert even when we’re understaffed or overwhelmed. Nurses show up with compassion and strength every day, but behind their common presence is often an unspoken burden that deserves recognition and care.Would you say that nursing is worth it from both an economic perspective and personal fulfillment standpoint?It was worth it, I felt it was hard. Would I go back and do it again? I’m not sure, because my heart was always to become a doctor. However, as a young person in high school, I wasn’t sure who to ask for help, where the mentors were to help me understand the difference between being a nurse practitioner versus being a doctor.But definitely, I think that it was well worth it for me. I learned a lot from being a nurse. I learned a lot from being a nurse practitioner. It shaped me to be the <a href="https://rollingout.com/2025/07/09/hypersexuality-the-addiction-doctors-won/">doctor</a> that I am today. Regarding economics, it’s very hard because it has been a long career, as you can tell, nursing and then nurse practitioner and then medical school. You need a lot of support for that, but it’s well worth it. I think making sure that you’re doing whatever it is that your heart is in. I think it will make the best success for yourself in the future. For me, it was being a doctor. Even though I took a detour, I actually love it. I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world.What are the two biggest pieces of advice you’d give someone who wants to become a nurse?Being a nurse is just four years, you can do it, but making sure you’re staying on top of it and making sure that you are doing what your heart is being called for. So one of the biggest things is studying habits. I feel like at the beginning, I didn’t know how to study. So learning your own <a href="https://www.cityu.edu/blog/good-study-habits/">study habits</a> and not leaving everything to the last minute is one thing and making sure that you prioritize and do self care. Understanding when you need to recharge the battery is very important.</div></body>

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Before Dr. Maria Muñoz-Bramhall became a family medicine physician and medical educator, she built her foundation in the trenches of healthcare as a registered nurse. Born in Mexico and immigrating to the United States at 11, she understood firsthand the challenges faced by marginalized communities in healthcare settings. After graduating from Rutgers University with a bachelor’s degree in nursing, she worked across multiple specialties including medical-surgical units, pediatrics, psychiatry, and telemetry.

Dr. Maria Muñoz-Bramhall overcomes nursing challenges

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Before Dr. Maria Muñoz-Bramhall became a family medicine physician and medical educator, she built her foundation in the trenches of healthcare as a regist

Dr. Maria Muñoz-Bramhall overcomes nursing challenges

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