Nurse Leadership Reflection Paper

As registered nurses (RNs) we have the capacity and the scope of practice to be leaders to our patients, their families, and our colleagues, to ensure health promotion is being maintained throughout the lifespan (CARNA 2008a as cited in CARNA, 2011, p. 5). Within this important role of nurse leader, we are called to advocate for social justice by emphasizing the importance of equity for all (Canadian Nurses Association (CNA), 2008, p. 2-3). This can be accomplished through reflection by nurse leaders in order to identify factors or attitudes which put people at risk for disparities in health. Strategies can then be explored which may mediate improvement in health for the affected people (CNA, 2008, p. 20; McIntyre & McDonald, 2014, p. 5).

I understand first hand how it can negatively impact the ways in which a person access’ healthcare services. As well, I feel very passionately about how we as a society, nursing aside, need to be better to the people who came to this land long before European settlers did and how ‘we’ as NACs have been historically unfair, and unjust to.

This concerns me most because when most people think of HCPs, they think of someone who is caring, respectful, trustworthy, and who has their best interests at heart. However, because most HCPs who work in Canadian healthcare environments grew up in Canada and have grown up in the culture where AP are commonly thought of then ‘less than’, ‘white’, Canadians, they [HCPs] are not liberated from these implicit bias’. In fact, the literature I have reviewed shows that AP in Canada are experiencing high accounts of systemic racism, and are not being treated the same as a their white counterparts when they are accessing health care (Billie & Janet 2015 ,p. 2,11; Reading 2014, p. 4; Cameron et al. 2014, p. 12). In some cases, AP are receiving no care at all when seeking healthcare. An example of this comes from an emergency department (ED) in Winnipeg. An aboriginal man, Brian Sinclair sat in the ED for 34-hours without receiving care for a bladder infection