Penn nurse confronts diabetes epidemic, health inequities in West Philadelphia

UNIVERSITY CITY (WPVI) -- These days, nursing isn't limited to hospitals or doctors' offices. Nurses are often in the community.

And you might even run into this winner of the Independence Blue Cross Celebrate Caring campaign at a farmers' market.

Jasmine Hudson's path into healthcare began at home - both mom and dad are registered nurses.

"Growing up witnessing my parents' passion for the delivery of compassionate empathetic care," says Jasmine, CRNP, MSN at Penn Medicine.

But Jasmine says her "light bulb moment" didn't come until she shadowed a nurse practitioner.

"She spent a lot of time educating her patients and partnering with her patients," she says of that encounter.

Later, doing bedside cardiac care at a hospital, she saw that many ailments were due to uncontrolled diabetes.

At least 38 million Americans have diabetes, and it affects 12.1% of African Americans, compared to 7.4% of non-Hispanic whites.

"After the initial shock of finding out that they have diabetes, I think what patients are looking for is some sense of control," says Jasmine. "The sense of control that I'm able to give my patients is through education."

But patients don't get bogged down with too much information.

"My husband always tells me, how do you eat an elephant? It's one bite at a time, right?" she says with a laugh.

Jasmine stresses why controlling blood sugar matters - better wound healing, fewer infections, fewer heart attacks and strokes and even better moods.

And she looks for a patient's individual hurdles, such as lack of access to healthy food or safe places to exercise.

Her teaching also stretches beyond the hospital. She co-directs outreach in her division to break down health inequities in West Philadelphia, using farmer's markets to promote healthy eating.

"She loves the community outreach. You see her light up at these events," says Dr. Carrie Burns, a Penn Medicine endocrinologist working with Jasmine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and HUP Cedar. "You can really tell she thrives on this. She's so enthusiastic. She loves this."

It's why Dr. Carrie Burns nominated Jasmine for the Independence Blue Cross Sunshine award, a prize IBX's late marketing director Paula Sunshine designed to spotlight the essential role nurses have.

"We really see the nurses as the backbone of the health care system. They play such an important and pivotal role," says Koleen Cavanaugh, the company's current marketing director.

Jasmine herself says nursing is limitless. She says she's deeply honored and grateful to Dr. Burns and Independence Blue Cross for this tribute.

Part of her prize will go to the Children's Literacy Initiative, so children can read better and be more in control of their own health as adults.

We asked Jasmine what she tells shoppers at farmers markets about healthy eating and reducing the risk of diabetes.

"Eat the rainbow, have a variety in your diet, in terms of fruits and vegetables. Protein is very important as well, eating carbohydrates in moderation," she says.

She notes that all fruits aren't equal when it comes to affecting blood sugar.

"Sometimes they don't realize that fruits can be really, really high in sugar," she says. "Any fruit that has the skin on it in which you cannot eat tends to be very high in sugar. Fruits that you can directly eat the skin of the fruit are lower in sugar."

She points out that, "A whole banana is 30 grams of carbs, a cup of strawberries is around eight grams of carbs. That's a huge difference."