nursingforsocialjustice

Narratives are powerful. The stories that we tell about people shape how we think about the world and the groups of people who live in it. The stories that we tell about people who use drugs are still cautionary tales of how not to live our lives lest we fall…

Is connection? This concept, addiction as the opposite of connection, gained a lot of traction following a 2015 TED Talk by journalist Johan Hari titled “Everything You Think You Know About Addiction Is Wrong“. But is it? In some respects, maybe because drug can become very lonely. As a society…

What is revisionist history? Well, it’s the integration of new pieces of information and perspectives into the histories that are known. I didn’t make it up, it is part of the historical research process. This is so because new pieces of information are found, new voices become part of the…

As I renew my RN licensed for the 14th time I cannot help but reflect on the rocky road of my nursing career. Five years into my nursing career I was done. I was 31 years old, had two kids under the age of 4 and I was tired. It…

It’s hard to express the crushing sense of sickness in the pit of my stomach when I think about publicly releasing video footage of someone being beaten to death. What kind of messed up twilight zone are we living in? It’s not some sort of big reveal. It’s exploiting the…

Is it just me or does the whole Covid-19 pandemic now strangely feel like a distant memory? Like a dream that happened? I get why collective memory of historical events fades so fast. I write this as a novice historical researcher deep in the murky waters of my PhD research…

It’s sunny outside. Today we are almost two weeks into January 2023. The year is in rapid acceleration. January is a sad and happy time. Last year at this time I was compiling archival research from the BC Archive and transcribing oral interviews. This year I’m trying to finish writing…

Today I am thinking about a time when I was pregnant with my youngest and a coworker asked me if it was my first baby. To which I replied, “no, it’s my fourth.” And they proceeded to ask me, “do they all have the same dad?” And at the time…

When the people who can afford to drop out and choose a better life, a more palatable environment, a homogenous community, do. What happens to the people who do not have that choice? We are all in this together, or what’s the point? Love, Michelle D.