Title: Registered Nurse and Clinical Educator
Workplace: Uniti Med & Crozer-Keystone Health System
Age: 39
Not only has registered nurse Aja Harper provided life-saving emergency medical care through a global pandemic, but she has also helped teach valuable skills to future health care workers.
Harper specializes in emergency and cardiovascular care and education and has been working in nursing for 14 years. She currently works as a travel emergency nurse from northern Pennsylvania to the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. She also works in several other nursing areas, including trauma, as a sexual assault nurse examiner, as a CPR/ACLS instructor and recently as a nurse educator at Lincoln University. During the pandemic, she helped save lives as a travel nurse working in more than 10 hospitals, filling the gaps presented by a national nursing shortage.
In addition to the challenging scenarios faced by health care workers in recent years, Harper also endured a traumatic attack from a patient, one that resulted in therapy and a legal settlement, but has nonetheless decided to stay in nursing because she is inspired by an unwavering commitment to eliminating health disparities and a love of promoting health education and justice.
The Delaware State University graduate serves on the leadership council the Black Girl Health Collective, an organization that aims to create healthy informed communities by curating spaces to educate and promote autonomy in wellness and wholeness.
In her free time, the mother of two enjoys life with her college sweetheart husband and family and loves to dance, cook and exercise.