nursingforsocialjustice

This could be it. I might be in the home stretch. The past 5 years have perhaps been the most challenging, heartbreaking 5 years of my life. None of that has anything to do with my academic career other than me trying to balance being a student and a nurse,…

One year ago I was beginning to interview participants for my dissertation research. Today I am struggling to finish my discussion/conclusion chapter. One year ago I was questioning if my move to community informatics was a good move. Today I am questioning where my move to professional practice was a…

So many days I find myself thinking, do I want to do something else with my career? Is this what I want my life to be? The opportunity that a pandemic gave me to be a more present parent was actually amazing. And I cannot cognitively reconcile why workplaces are…

I’m already in mourning for the time of the 2020-2022 pandemic when the line between parent and worker was more fluid, when workplaces were flexible enough to allow parents to take time to drop their kids off and pick them kids up from school, a time when flexibility was a…

It is unusually warm this autumn season in the Lower Mainland. It hasn’t rained in what seems like weeks. That scares me. Chew on this juicy cud for a minute. The idea that competition and cooperation are mutually exclusive. Can we work together and also work for our self interest?…

Certain words are part of our part of our lexicon. We don’t even contemplate their roots. Let’s stop using words like Stakeholder in our business. In other news the latest episode of The Shift Change was posted on SoundCloud yesterday. Take a listen. Love, Michelle D.

In British Columbia there are four categories of regulated nurses: Licensed Practice Nurses (LPN also known as RPNs in Ontario), Registered Nurse (RN), Registered Psychiatric Nurse (RPN) and Nurse Practitioners (NP). RPNs largely worked in mental institutions across Western Canada until the 1970s when they began to move into the…

People like puppies, funny cat videos and feel good movies with inspirational messages. Why are there so many Jesus-y posts on my Instagram feed? (This is a rhetorical question, of course I know it’s because I need to be saved). Love, Michelle D. P.S. high definition tv isn’t a friend…

For various reasons. Honestly, many of them are related to the constant sense of failure I feel by not having my dissertation done…by now. Because it is tough to celebrate the steps forward when I feel like the end journey is so far ahead. I work all the time. That…

In a 2007 Macleans article former British Columbia Liberal Premier Gordon Campbell called the (by then) almost 50-year process of deinstitutionalization “a failed experiment.” Some might call this a strange way to describe a not only Canadian movement toward a different understanding of those deemed mentally ill, and thr physically…