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Posts from the ‘social justice’ Category

Oct 31

Access to Care


The October – December 2022 issue of ANS (45:4) is just published! The first ANS featured article in this issue is titled “Access Denied: Nurses’ Perspectives of Access to Oncology Care Among Indigenous Peoples in Canada” authored by Tara C. Horrill, PhD, RN; Donna E. Martin, PhD, RN; Josée G. Lavoie, PhD; and Annette S. H. Schultz, PhD, RN. You can download and read this article at no cost while it is featured, and we welcome your comments about this work here! Dr. Horrill shared this information about this work for ANS readers:

Tara Horrill

My program of research centers on health and healthcare inequities in the cancer care sector. The research findings reported in “Access Denied…” represents one component of a multiple methods study that investigated issues of access to cancer care among Indigenous Peoples in Canada, and was the final component of my doctoral dissertation. My interest in issues of inequitable access to cancer care and Indigenous Peoples was born out of my experiences as a clinical oncology nurse, and repeatedly seeing Indigenous patients be diagnosed with advanced cancers, often cancers that we have the ability to detect early and treat. As I started to ask questions of clinicians around me as to why we were seeing these patterns, the responses I received often attributed these late diagnoses to “lifestyle” choices or increased cancer risk. Yet there seemed to be more to the picture that I wasn’t hearing, and I wondered about issues of accessibility, which formed the basis of my dissertation research. The findings reported in this article focus specifically on interviews with oncology nurses to understand their perspectives on the barriers to and facilitators of access to oncology care, which has not yet been explored in existing literature. We were particularly interested in nurses’ perspectives as they provide the bulk of clinical care, daily navigate the tensions between individual patient experiences of illness and suffering and the health system in which they work, and also have experiences of caring for Indigenous patients over time and various practice settings. Nurses provided important insights into many of the challenges surrounding access to oncology care and drew attention to the actual and potential work of oncology nurses in addressing these inequities. It seems the role of nurses is not often considered in relation to healthcare access, however these findings open space to not only see the valuable work being done by nurses, but to consider where and how we, as a profession, could better to confront inequities in access to oncology care for Indigenous Peoples by addressing healthcare access at all levels.

Mar 4

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Sexual Assault in the Lives of Ethnic Minority Women


Our current featured article is by the prolific social-justice team from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee – Ashley Ruiz, BSN, RN; Jeneile Luebke, PhD, RN; Maren Hawkins, BA; Kathryn Klein, BA; Lucy Mkandawire-Valhmu, PhD, RN. This current article is titled “A Historical Analysis of the Impact of Hegemonic Masculinities on Sexual Assault in the Lives of Ethnic Minority Women Informing Nursing Interventions and Health Policy.” The article is available for download at no cost while it is featured. Below is a message from primary author Ashley Ruiz about this work:

In this article, we urge readers to consider how hegemonic masculinities are created, upheld, and sustained, due to intersecting systems of oppressions (the totality of which are also referred to as the matrix of domination).  A dominant ideology that refers to how masculine traits are constructed and idealized, hegemonic masculinities are learned social practices that ultimately lead to justifying the acceptability of violence, such as sexual assault.  In this article, we identify four ways in which hegemonic masculinities are used to justify sexual assault, specifically in the lives of ethnic minority women (social order hierarchies, “othering” dynamics, negative media/mass communication depiction, and economic labor division).  We draw from the literature to demonstrate specific ways in which sexual assault in the lives of ethnic minority women in the States are historically situated specifically in relation to colonization and slavery.  This history, upheld by hegemonic masculinities, demonstrates the past and present justification of sexual assault in ethnic minority women’s lives.  We call for nurses to recognize and understand this history as a basis for their approach to effectively meeting the healthcare needs of ethnic minority women who have experienced sexual assault. Understanding this history can help contribute to the implementation of effective interventions and health policies that disrupt hegemonic masculine ideologies by calling for a cultural shift in US society that no longer tolerates violence against women while ensuring the provision of opportunities for women’s healing.  

Dec 14

Reflective Action for Social Change


The latest featured article in ANS is titled “Cultivating Praxis Through Chinn and Kramer’s Emancipatory Knowing” authored by Jessica Peart, BSN, BA, RN and Karen MacKinnon, PhD, RN. In this article the authors explain how emancipatory knowing provides nurses a formal structure to recognize the sociopolitical factors affecting wellness, while making evident the ethical imperative and central role of taking reflective action toward social change—the praxis of nursing. The article is available for download at no cost while it is featured, and we welcome your comments and ideas!  Here is a message from Jessica Peart about this work:

What do we value as nurses?  What is important to know in order to practise safely, competently, and ethically? These questions took on a new meaning when I started my Masters of Nursing program last year as I study to become a Nurse Practitioner.

Jessica Peart

  My background—prior to my nursing career—as a community organizer laid the groundwork for seeing nursing through the lens of social justice.  The perspective, skills, and knowledge I garnered through my community work is threaded throughout my daily nursing practice.  In fact, they are integral to my “nursing toolbox” as a client and community advocate, in the critical empathy that I display supporting clients “on the margins”, and in my comfortability in the “grey” areas of our practice where nursing isn’t well represented by tick boxes or flow sheets.

But how do nurses, especially those pursuing advanced practice roles, develop competencies that forward the social justice lens that foregrounds our ethical practice when they came into their nursing role without a background in social justice work?  Following this path of inquiry in my MN coursework led me to Peggy Chinn and Maeona Kraemer’s exploration of emancipatory knowing as a means through which nurses can better understand the socio-political forces affecting our clients and take action towards more equitable social relations.  The mandate for nursing as social justice is clear, but the path we take to get there might not always be.  I found that Chinn and Kramer’s emancipatory knowing can help nurses to shed a light in the directions we might take towards cultivating the reflective practice that we have come to know as nursing praxis.

 

 

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