Fatmata B.B. Koroma becomes the First Sierra Leonean Nurse Practitioner in Texas

Given the current healthcare priorities here in the United States, at home in Sierra Leone, and the challenging roles of nurses around the world, Fatmata Binta Barrie Koroma, the wife of Mr. Harry Koroma has reached the climax of her nursing career as she will be the first Sierra Leonean to become a Nurse Practitioner (NP) in Dallas Fort-Worth metropolitan in Texas. She attained this special ability from the Texas Women’s University (TWU) where she initially scored her Bachelor’ and Master’s degree goals.

Because of her substantial contribution in rendering humanitarian kind and her generosity to the community, Sierra Leoneans deemed it necessary to support her in celebrating and recognizing this wonderful outstanding achievement. The celebration took place at the city of Richardson where people from different localities, professions, friends and relatives enthusiastically joined Mrs. Fatmata Koroma on her graduation party for which some say a splendid achievement. Her tutors, job supervisors and teammates were all there to celebrate as Reverend Franklin Coomber accelerated Fatmata’s works in life.

Her career journey started from 1991 when she migrated to the United States with a fixed purpose initiative of searching for a greener pasture. Despite numerous constraints, some of which are terribly anguishing, Fatmata withstood them to achieve her utmost goals. She started from the bottom level of the healthcare service as a Certified Nurse’s Aide (CNA), a common starting point of accomplishment for especially African immigrants, and quickly went to school to become a Registered Nurse (RN).

The celebration came at a time when a group of nurses in Texas had decided to form a Sierra Leone Nurses Association in Texas. Despite a clear objective of that organization has not been spelled out on the flyer, Mrs. Koroma told me that she is very much interested to be part of the nurses association because she believes that she will enthusiastically explore the possibility of a collaboration towards unification of Sierra Leone nurses across the United States.

Everyday, new healthcare trends are emerging while many Sierra Leoneans continue to evolve in facing the global challenges of taking care of acute and chronic diseases by entering into the health care field. Also, as a priority in our country, the changing role and advancement of our healthcare professionals is an essential accomplishment that Sierra Leoneans needs to embrace. Fatmata is now ready to assume the leadership roles in the family clinical practice, clinical teaching, and research application with the ability to deliver exceptionally high quality healthcare delivery system. Now that she is a family nurse practitioner, the complex social issues such as drug addiction, violence through depression and personal hygiene will be all part of her priorities and challenges.

With the conceptual nurse profession framework, Mrs. Koroma could be assessed as a self fulfilling Nurse Practitioner based on her career track record. She is now considered to be an expert who is able to accurately answer the calls of ill people in our community and give safety advice.  If I can recall special memories of the graduate NP’s ability to respond to an ill person, she has demonstrated that in March 2006 when she responded to my call on my wife’s sickbed at the intensive care unit in the Presbyterian hospital in Dallas. She stormed the hospital and quickly took over from the charge nurse to explore her ability and interest in a critical situation as my wife. In view of that capacity as a nurse practitioner, Nurse Koroma’s role in the community is a solution to a changing and improving society.

The Sierra Leone community in the metropolitan should take into cognizance that Fatmata Binta Barrie Koroma could now be an independent provider who can be autonomous in practice and will be able to a fill void in our community. We must be proud of her because she is now able to diagnose and treat a wide range of health problems, another community nurse told me.

According to statistics, nursing is the largest healthcare occupation in the United States. Nurse Practitioners (NPs) are considered key players in the primary healthcare delivery system Therefore, such an achievement needs to be recognized for others to emulate so that our being in this great country could give us a positive impact by exporting our experience and knowledge to our poor country. 

Sanpha Sesay, Texas, USA

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