Retired Belizean-born Registered Nurse Dr. Illouise Murillo-Tucker says she is committed to the population she serves — the marginalized and disenfranchised mental health population.

Brooklyn resident Dr. Murillo-Tucker — who has held several faculty and leadership positions and recently retired as the director of nursing for the Behavioral Health Department at Health +Hospital/Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Hospital – told Caribbean Life over the weekend that she advocates for the mental health population at “every opportunity presented, especially within the Caribbean community.”

She has been a member of the Caribbean American Nurses’ Association, Inc. (CANA) since 1987 and is the current parliamentarian.

As a CANA member, Dr. Murillo-Tucker said she has participated in many educational presentations, “served as an advocate for acceptance of the need for all to care for their mental health and for our Caribbean community to approach mental illness in a nonjudgmental way,” and supports referral for care as needed.

She is a board member of the Brooklyn-based APC Community Services, Inc. and has participated in numerous community activities, including health fairs and educational sessions, nutritional awareness and food distribution, and “increasing awareness of all things Caribbean, including our commonalities, as well as our differences.”

She is also a member of Sigma Theta Tau, Inc. sorority.

As a past member of The Program in Global Mental Health of Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York, Dr. Murillo-Tucker said she collaborated with the Belize Mental Health Program.

In this program, she implemented a Quality Assurance Program in conjunction with the Belize psychiatric nurse practitioners.

Dr. Murillo-Tucker said she has also conducted research through the auspices of the Belize Ministry of Health on “the psychiatric patient’s perspective of trust in their provider; that is, the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner with a finding of a high level of trust.”

In addition, she said she has participated in several other research projects resulting in publications and contributions to nursing scholarship.

She is the recipient of several awards, including Caribbean Nursing Organization Nurse of the Year (NY) 2006; CANA, Inc. Black Nurses Award; Caribbean American Health Care Award; APC Community Award; and Vanderveer Park United Methodist Membership Recognition Award.

Dr. Murillo-Tucker is an active member of Vanderveer Park United Methodist Church, and serves on several committees including the Altar Guild; The Health Care Committee; The Higher Education Committee; and is the current chair of the Pastor Parish Relations Committee.

She said she gives “all thanks and praise to God,” who orders her steps, and has shown her “the true meaning of living a life blessed with Grace and Mercy.”

Though born in Belize City, Dr. Murillo-Tucker said she is “proud to embrace” her maternal grandma’s (Lillian Patten) and great grandma’s (Jane Wade) roots of Gales Point Manatee, a place first settled by runaway slaves, “which is a source of much Kriol pride.”

At age 5, Dr. Murillo-Tucker said a midwife came to her home and told her, if she stayed outside and played with the other children, she would leave a brother for her.

When the midwife later told her she could go back in the house, Dr. Murillo-Tucker said she met her baby brother, Victor, for the first time.

She said that event might have shaped her calling to be a nurse.

Dr. Murillo-Tucker said she completed her basic training as a registered nurse at the University Hospital of the West Indies, Jamaica in 1980 before migrating to the United States that same year.

She obtained her bachelor’s degree from St. Joseph University in 1985 and her master’s from Columbia University in 1997, while successfully completing the requirements for licensure as a psychiatric nurse practitioner.

Dr. Murillo-Tucker said she is a 2008 Fellow of the Leadership Institute for Black Nurses at New York University School of Nursing.

She earned her doctorate in nursing practice, with a focus on leadership, in 2015, from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Dr. Murillo-Tucker is the wife of Charles Tucker, and the proud mother of Camille Melissa Tucker and Omar Charles Tucker.

She said she is first of five siblings, and serves as “the family resource for most things Belizean.”