I Dare You to Drink the Vinegar

This is a journey. As I progress through my Masters degree in nursing I find that I am continually challenged to organize all of those thoughts that I use in my daily practice into a framework that subsequently forces me to become more deliberate in my practice. Currently I am enrolled in my first of three courses on teaching. The first assignment I have completed is about my personal teaching philosophy. As I found it to be a useful tool in my reflective teaching practice I will share it here in the hope that it can help other nursing educators in the making begin to think about their own personal teaching philosophy and how it is applied to their teaching practice. M.Danda RN BN

I have made a recent job change from community addictions to mental health rehabilitation. I find that challenge of working in a newly established program quite invigorating. Further, I find that the challenge of trying to forge a place within a multidisciplinary health care team has really enabled me to reflect on what I define as nursing and nursing scope of practice in mental health. I must admit that I have taken it quite personally when coworkers have shared that they view the nurses role as "pill pushers". This make me wonder, is there something that, as nurses, we are failing to do as perceptions, even within the health care system continue to view our role as very narrow and disposable. Little knots begin to twist and turn in my stomach as I hear coworkers say that they performed the role that they now observe is being filled by nursing staff. This again makes me wonder, how are we, as nurses, failing to forge our own role as distinct and necessarily filled by Registe