I Dare You to Drink the Vinegar

  Reflecting on More Than Five Years Since My Conversation on Racism in Canadian Nursing More than half a decade has passed since I sat down with the Canadian Nurses Association to record an interview about racism in health care , an experience that became, as I now see with greater clarity, a pivotal moment in both my personal and professional development. Looking back, I am confused, bewildered, and honestly, incredibly disappointed, by how little seems to have changed in the years since I that interview was published. The Pandemic Exposed Systemic Injustice Take a deep breath and I will take you back 5 years. During the early chaos of the COVID-19 pandemic, as we were all confined to our homes, it felt as though the world’s deepest systemic problems were suddenly front and centre for all to see on social media loop. The killing of George Floyd sparked global protests against anti-Black racism. At the same time, anti-Asian hate surged in Canada and around the world as rhetoric ab...

  There’s a certain kind of wisdom that lives in the in-between moments of a nursing shift. It’s that space between the assessments and clinical documentation, the medication checks and the purposeful rounding, between the hand sanitizer pump and the how-are-you-this-morning. It’s a wisdom that doesn’t get measured or calculated in “hours of care” or captured in patient flow spreadsheets. It’s about presence. It’s about being with the patient, not just doing things to or for the patient. The longer I stay in this beautiful profession we call nursing, the more convinced I am: this is the core of our work. It’s the core of our profession and  our discipline (and if you recently graduated from an undergrad nursing program or are deep into your MSN you are intimately familiar with that debate)​ The Quiet Work of Being With the Patient It’s tempting, even seductive, to imagine that “knowing the patient” happens during a comprehensive assessment, or at medication administration time...

  Many years ago, when I was a Clinical Instructor in one of Vancouver’s major research-based nursing programs, I had the privilege of working with a group of senior undergraduate nursing students completing their final rotation in an acute inpatient mental health setting. If you are a nurse educator, you already know this: those final placements are often intense, students are balancing theory and practice, integrating new knowledge, and beginning to see themselves as professionals. These students are stressed out. There are sleepless nights, anxious moments with staff nurses and physicians, and there are tears. More tears than I would have thought before I became a Clinical Instructor. At that time, the unit’s Patient Care Coordinator, who I will describe as a seasoned nurse (the spicy variety) nearing retirement, was a nurse I knew from when I started my career as a new graduate in the same hospital, on those same units. She had decades of experience in acute mental health care ...