Mikaela Thepvongsa, 26, is an ICU nurse in Seattle pushing for inclusivity with educational TikTok videos going viral.
Thepvongsa is like most adults her age and enjoys life’s usual pleasures like exploring, hanging out with friends, and dating. The big difference is that she is deaf and has made it her mission to prove that hearing loss shouldn’t set her apart.
Daily Nurse honors Mikaela Thepvongsa as the Nurse of the Week for using TikTok to debunk misconceptions and stigmas about people in the deaf and hard-of-hearing communities through her videos and educating followers by giving quick lessons on American Sign Language on the app.
“I wanted to show people it was possible for deaf people to travel, go to nursing school, learn to drive, even the little things,” says Thepvongsa. “A lot of people have this misconception that all of them sign, or all of them don’t know how to talk or don’t know how to read or write.”
Thepvongsa has reached 1.9 million likes on the platform. In most of her videos, she answers common questions about the deaf community and details her experience as a deaf woman.
One of her most viewed videos details her time at Washington State University nursing school. She even describes how her clinical instructor told her to drop out because of her deafness.
“She pulled me aside and said hey, I don’t think this is for you,” says Thepvongsa. “Her main concern was that she didn’t think I could do the job. She said it in front of the whole class.”
Thepvongsa proved that instructor wrong and has reached her goal of becoming an ICU nurse, where she faces some challenges on the job. But that doesn’t stop her.
She says technology has come a long way. “It’s important to adapt to the times, and for that reason, it’s important to be encouraging.”
Thepvongsa says she doesn’t necessarily need an interpreter because she was mainstreamed, or in other words, went to a hearing school—often a standard public school versus a specialized residential deaf school. She is used to communicating verbally, reading lips, and listening with her cochlear implant.
TikTok is a marketplace for skill sharing of all sorts, and Thepvongsa says she hopes her videos will stop people from discriminating against people in the deaf community.
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