I Dare You to Drink the Vinegar

I felt like work-life balance was much more manageable when I was working 12 hour shift work rather than Monday to Friday 0745-1600. In retrospect working in the Vancouver area was actually pretty good. There was so much more potential there than I could see at the time, perhaps because I was a bit burnt out and not as invested as I could have been. Or maybe, in the my current position of employment, I just have more time to reflect on my practice then and compare it to what I see now now. The inpatient mental health and addiction world is kind of a sad place that oddly enough holds so much hope of being a better place. I find that I have much more time now to reflect on the practice of mental health nursing in general. That being said, here are my goals for 2013: 1) Incorporate reflective practice into the lives of staff nurses in a tangible way 2) Encourage more thought about how human rights issues are challenged by current inpatient mental health practice I find myself thinkin...

Happy Canada Day. Take a minute to reflect on what this means to you. If you are a newly landed immigrant this might mean something vastly different than a seventh generation Canadian descended from British immigrants, and again something vastly different than someone who is Aboriginal. I have been noticing lately that many of the forms and surveys that I have been viewing and completing are using the terms gender and sex incorrectly. This is very irritating to me. However the definition of gender does not seem to be common knowledge. Perhaps this is knowledge that I gained through my sociology degree (with a concentration in gender studies). The definitions of both terms are as follows:      ""Gender" refers to the socially constructed roles, behaviours, activities, and attributes that a given society        considers appropriate for men and women."      ""Sex" refers to the biological and physiological characteristics that...

The experience of exam writing is something I became quite familiar with over the course of my psychology, sociology, and nursing degrees. When I was doing my first two undergrad degrees in sociology and psychology more than a decade ago one of my favorite evaluation tools was the multiple-choice exam. In that time period at the University of Calgary, all first, second (and often third-year) sociology and psychology classes were so large that the primary evaluation method was multiple-choice testing. I was very familiar with them, I wrote a lot of them, I was good at them in the sense that I frequently got most answers correct.  Mastery or False Confidence?  I mastered writing multiple-choice exams as a necessity when I was a second-year student trying to get into the competitive faculty of psychology because demand was so high and it was so competitive. The mastery increased in my third year because class sizes were so large and multiple-choice exams were the go-to evaluation...

"It's time to teach our daughters that their ability to be good people depends on their being good people, not on whether or not they're sexually active (Valenti, 2009)." I am far beyond the point of remaining silent when I hear someone else's prejudiced opinion, especially when it is in front of someone who is impressionable to these distorted and stigmatizing attitudes, especially a young woman who, through this type of talk is learning about how to feel shameful for decisions that may differ from traditional, outdated and violent notions of what it means to be a woman, and consequently how to shame other women because of this. And, as a woman who believes in social justice for women, I will always choose that hill to die on because that is how important the issue is to me.  I very much understand that I cannot change another person's beliefs, but I can certainly share my own. I very much believe that I can help to inform others, challenge traditional gend...

Three weeks ago Kelly and I made the decision that we will be moving back to Calgary as soon as possible. This decision was made for personal reasons but, as I started the process of updating my resume, applying for jobs, applying for registration in Alberta and going through the job interview process I realize that working and living in Calgary will be a much needed break from the Lower Mainland. I received my first job offer today for inpatient psychiatry. I am excited. I am looking forward to working in what I remember as a more cohesive health care region with more money and more resources. I am hoping that after some time working in Calgary I can return to working in the Lower Mainland in the area of nursing that is nearest and dearest to my heart, concurrent disorders.

Yesterday I went to work and noticed that there were flyers up for a memorial service for a client. I later learned from a co-worker that this client died earlier in the week. I found out that this client had broken some bones in an accident and made the decision to not seek medical treatment. I was unclear about what exactly led to their death but I assume it was related to the fractures and complications related to their compromised health status. This is the first client that I have personally known, in my almost 5 years in nursing, that has died. Working in mental health and addictions I know that there are definitely clients that I have cared for who have died.  When I worked as a care-aide during the first part of my nursing undergrad degree I witnessed people's deaths; I participated in the process of wrapping the body. But this experience was different, this was the first person that I actually had a health care professional-client relationship with, someone I knew, who die...

Working in mental health and addictions in Vancouver is tough. I think that there are many challenges to trying to "fix" the "problem" of the downtown eastside. And I'm pretty sure the answer isn't gentrification, pushing the visibly homeless further east or pouring more and more money in to the supply side of the illegal drug trade. This is not a novel idea that I have. If you do not believe me, think about this: There are many different stores that sell high calorie, low nutritional value foods that taste great. If one store that sells these products closes down, even a big store, like Safeway, the demand for these items does not decrease. People will still want to buy junk food. You severely decrease the supply, but people will still crave junk food and will probably go out of their way to seek it out. So why wouldn't a good entreprenuer step in and provide this product for those who want it? They make money, the public gets what it wants. Everyone wi...

Last night I attended the BC Nurses Union update dinner. The members of the BCNU will have a ratification vote on October 18th, 2012 for the proposed contract. From what I understand it seems that the bargaining unit did a good job. The new contract had some gains, uses very clearly worded language that is easy to understand and implement, we will be returning to a 37.5 hour work week and there will be 2125 new full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs added provincially. Some people at the dinner seemed happy with this and some people at the dinner seemed frustrated by the lack of gains. However, I think that we have to understand that ultimately, it is not the failure of the bargaining team that is the result of seemingly wishful gains like a cost of living wage increase, more money for education and safer staffing province wide, it is the public and the tax payers collectively that decide what we are worth. I think that many people complain when taxes go up, when they have to pay sales tax ...

How much "free time" do you percieve you have when you're working a shift? How much do you believe that it is part of your responsiblity as a professional Registered Nurse to nurture students, new graduates and new employees in your workplace setting? I remember when I was pregnant with my first child I worked in a community health centre as an addiction nurse. This was a temporary position that I took over from a nurse who had only been in the position a couple weeks and was asked to stop working there during my first orientation shift. My orientation (or lack thereof) left me bewildered about what the position actually entailed. With a little less than two years of experience as a Registered Nurse and my first position working semi-independently in a community setting I did not have complete understanding of what I was supposed to be doing. I spent most of my shifts waiting for phone calls from potential clients, taking stock of the nicotine replacement dispensed and p...

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed when I realize everything that I do not know. Sometimes I feel like I have not even scratched the surface of everything that I think I should know to be a great registered nurse. Over my few years of experience I have come to realize that being a registered nurse necessitates keeping up to date with the latest practice guidelines and trends. This means reading the research, going to conferences, participating in education sessions about the latest products and practice and reading the policy and procedure as it is changed and updated in facilities and health care regions. This is not an easy task. In fact, I am starting to realize this is a huge challenge in an age when funding dollars are being cut for educators and education. When I embarked on my journey into HIV nursing I definitely viewed it (and still view it) as an opportunity for new learning but four months into this new job I feel like there have not really been proper supports to engage in adeq...

As a society are we progressing or just changing? The term progress indicates that there is betterment. But is there more happiness, love and hope and less suffering? I think that many could make the argument that there is more suffering and less care and compassion now than a hundred years ago. Are we better today than were were a fifty, a hundred or a thousand years ago? I guess that depends on how you define the term better.

Language is extemely powerful. The language that is used to describe mental health is important. I think that sometimes people forget that. I recently participated in an online discussion about whether stigma attached to mental health issues is more damaging than mental health diagnosis. One particpant, another mental health professional suggested that labels themselves do not do the damage, it is the meanings that we attach to these labels that causes damage. My question is, do words function independently of meaning? For example, is the term addict or personality disorder simply a neutral word? While I understand the author's notion that positive meaning could be attached to these terms just as much as negative ones this ignores the fact that there are meanings already attached to these words. Further, this ignores that fact that in medicine a client is often identified by their label, their mental health diagnosis. Since the beginning of my nursing career I have worked with ma...

I have made an executive decision that my goal for the remainder of 2012 is to be an extremely prolific letter writer and comment maker on both on-line and print media for the purpose of educating the public about health care as a social justice issue. On a similar note, have you heard about the 59 Cents Campaign? If you have not, learn more about it here . Peace,  Michelle C. Danda, budding nurse academic 

I have heard it over and over again, and, in fact, at at time I believed it, "what does the union ever do for us?" A statement and a question that indicates both one's belief that union dues are money spent that one will never see a return on but also, that one has never taken the time to actually learn about what the role of the union is and how it works for the rights of the worker. As a person who has worked in both union and non-union roles I can safely say that I will remain pro-union because the collective bargaining for our worker rights as registered nurses has brought us to where we are today, which is still not the best position it could be. This has nothing to do with greed or wanted more than is deserved but with fairness.

I was listening to the radio the other morning and the DJs were having a discussion about how much money they would have to win in order to participate in a contest where they would go shopping naked. Two of the women DJs said they would need to win hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to participate in such a contest. One of the DJs mentioned a contest sponsored by a grocery store in Europe where those who showed up to the store naked to shop would win $400 worth of groceries. This made me think, perhaps those who are financially stable require an exorbitant amount of money to participate in such a contest but those who have less may be more inclined to participate. This in turn made me think about the nature of the contest, what the experience of being naked means in our society, and how 'winning' involved putting oneself on display in order to gain a basic need, food, in an amount that most of the ‘haves’ of the world likely spend in a weekly shopping trip.  What does t...

I have learned a lot by listening and transcribing the Traditional Knowledge interviews. An important piece of learning that I have taken away is that the traditional way of life that involves hunting, trapping and harvesting is still very much a part of Aboriginal communities in rural Canada. Meat in the grocery store is expensive. Hunting wild game, trapping animals and collecting eggs is important to participants food security which in turn impacts their health. The framework that many of us (and by that I mean not only people who live in urban centres but also those who have been born and raised within a Western perspective) approach land use is one of economic gain, largely ignoring the fact that there are still people who live off the land.

In recent weeks I have become the Executive Vice President of KSDavison & Associates and obtained a casual Registered Nursing position in the Day Health program at the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation .  Both of these are very exciting new opportunities because they are allowing me to venture into areas of business and health, respectively, that I have not previously had experience with. Did I mention that I had a baby 5 months ago?  Leadership Ventures       KSDavison & Associates is a company owned and operated by my husband, Kelly S. Davison. Although he is now a third-year nursing student, in his previous (current)career his role was Traditional Knowledge Facilitator. I am very pleased to say that I am now going to be part of this company. The past month has been full of firsts. I went on my first business trip, helped to facilitate my first Traditional Knowledge Use (TDK) interviews, and am beginning to learn how to write TDK reports. Alth...

Unfortunately too many people believe that one's health is determined solely by personal choice.  Research supports that this is not the case, but rather, that the social conditions into which one is born into and lives are inextricably connected to how they experience health.  This is not common knowledge but it should be.  Learn about the social determinants of Canadian health and how they impact those living in Canada. http://www.thecanadianfacts.org/

     The other night I was sitting in a pub with my husband and some friends and the the issue of fully funded public higher education came up.  A friend was making the argument that if the Canadian government decided to fully fund all post secondary institutions then everyone would have a degree or post secondary credential of some sort and then no one would want to do jobs like cleaning toilets.  This was an interesting argument that indicated the lack of knowledge and understanding about formal education and how it works in and how it effects a society.  My first response was that equal access and funding does not mean the same thing as everyone being granted a degree.  The reality that there are different levels of motivation, ability and desire to pursue post-secondary education would continue to exist but there would be more equal access to formal education.  In my later reflections on t...

I am sitting on my bed after a long day of taking care of baby Kelly (which primarily involved watching him sleep in his electronically powered swing) thinking about what is going to happen in the next year that I have off from my full-time job on my maternity leave. As I stare into the sweetest, angelic face ever sleeping beside me I cannot help but think about what the next steps of my career are after I complete my Master's degree in 4 weeks and begin searching for casual work when my salary top-up ends in late May.  I have mixed feelings about wanting to return to work so soon but at the same time I look forward to the challenge of finding a casual nursing position outside of my comfort zone of mental health and addictions and in a time of unsteady nursing waters following what I anticipate will be a lengthy contract negotiation by the BC Nurses Union. I am both excited and scared about the possibility that I will find I am going to...