For most entrepreneurs it’s after deep thought or swift realization that a business is launched. For Rachele Simmons, the inspiration came about when she took her son on an East coast college tour in 2009. Having then been a nurse for 20 years, Simmons’ attention drifted to the many hospitals and medical facilities she’d see on campuses in Washington DC and Maryland.

“I wondered if they had a lot of nursing programs or programs for people who wanted to get in on the ground floor. As a nurse I knew you could get a job pretty quickly as a nursing assistant. Depending upon where you live you could make $12 to $20 bucks an hour,” said Simmons, a St. Paul, MN native who’s always wanted to usher minorities in her home state into the healthcare field.

A Different Kind of Business License

By the time she returned from the East coast, Simmons had researched all of the information needed to open a training facility of her own.

“I had looked up nursing assisting programs, how to start one in St. Paul, what credentials I needed and business information on how to own one,” she said.

Gearing up to establish a nursing assistance certification school, Simmons registered at Minneapolis Community and Technical College to earn a license to teach and learn basic business skills. As Simmons’ program correlates with community, she linked up with a neighborhood entrepreneurship program.

Just two months after deciding to create a certified nursing assistant program, Simmons unveiled Foundations Health Career Academy. The accredited school would offer a month-long (80-hour) course that would graduate certified nursing assistants (CNA) and home health aides. Using curriculum approved and outlined by the state of Minnesota — and used in any other CNA program — Simmons would serve as the sole lecturer and clinical skills instructor. Following three weeks of lectures, students participate in a clinical externship. After clinicals, students have to pass a state competency exam.

Since the country’s inception, black women have been working tirelessly to advance the cause of medicine and eradicate sickness and disease. From the first black nurse to the first black female neurosurgeon, African-American women have solidified their place in medical history and left a legacy of firm determination, selfless compassion, and academic excellence.

Photo courtesy of Detroit Free Press

Dr. Alexa Canady

In 1976, at age 26, Alexa Canady became the first black female neurosurgeon in the United States when she was accepted as a resident at the University of Minnesota. In 1986, after four years at the Children’s Hospital of Michigan, Canady became chief of the hospital’s neurosurgery department. In 1993, she received the American Women’s Medical Association President’s Award. Canady’s research in neurosurgical techniques resulted in the invention of a programmable antisiphon shunt, which is used to treat excess fluid in the brain. She shares a U.S. patent for the device with two other neurosurgeons.