I’ve taken some months to let a few things settle. In May I finished, finally, my Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing. This was a goal since I graduated from my Associate Degree program in 1980. When I got my Registered Nurse license there were very few options for building a BSN onto an ADN. It’d've been easy to stop right then and let go of my dream of a Bachelor’s degree- being a Registered Nurse is nothing to sneeze at. It’s a noble calling, it’s satisfying work for a science-based people-friendly person, I was lucky enough to come into it as wages were going up… I could have stopped there.
But I’d wanted to graduate from University from a very young age, even though I’m not a linear, organized, determined kind of person, and I knew it would take me the long way ’round before I received my diploma.
Which has been, in the long run, very good for me. I’ve got a thirty+ year perspective on the California System of Higher Education, and the same on how Nursing’s perceived itself and its purpose. I’m half-way through a Certificate in Conflict Resolution. I’ve added computer literacy and web-based research skills to my already excellent writing and library skills. I’ve made hundreds of connections inside and out of academia. And I’ve learned to trust patience and perseverance as much as I value quick decisive action.
I’ve used the time between the last post and this one to pull together my goals for this website.
First: to develop a Nuclear Awareness curriculum for Nurses, including despair-work, nuclear guardianship, and nuclear-disarmament activism, within the role of the RN as Community Health Nurse.
Second: a central site for my thoughts on the intersection of Nursing, Public Health, and Anti-Nuclear Activism.
Third: the story of my growing personal activism as it is informed and shaped by my experience as an RN.
Nurses, Nursing- there’s a lot on our plates. No country can really afford its health care; no country really uses its nurses to its advantage. Nursing’s subject the opportunities and constraints that affect all labor: I posit that teaching Non-Violent Communication in nursing school or in Continuing Education courses would develop ways for nurses to negotiate decent contracts in an increasingly fiscally uncertain time, and to find ways to be more active in, more available to, the health of their communities whether through direct service or political service.
I like to think of nursing as a force for change; I’m determined to do my part to wake us to our larger value. I’ll be working on this over the winter as I continue to rehabilitate a shoulder injury, and follow nuclear disarmament/nuclear guardianship activity around the world.
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