This week Phil and I catch up with our old friend Madeline who recently moved south of the border. Although we miss her terribly, we were excited to get a first hand report of the expensive and time consuming process of taking your nursing degree across the border.

From frostbite to cardiac arrests, rural nursing demands confidence and critical thinking. This week we chat with Janelle who left the lower mainland as a new grad to become a critical care trained emergency room nurse in rural BC. Tune in for interesting tales of what it is like to work with limited staff, resources, and allied health.

Let’s talk about Nursing in Ontario under Bill 124

Andrea is an emergency room nurse in Ontario where the pressures of nursing have reached a breaking point. In addition to the stress of working the front lines of the covid- 19 pandemic, Ontario nurses are also being told they will only receive a maximum of 1% wage increase under Premier Doug Ford’s wage-suppression legislation. Bill 124 is driving nurses out of the profession where retention and recruitment are already struggling.

The MAiD program aims to prevent unnecessary suffering for individuals facing end of life. As BC looks to expand MAiD to include mental health diagnoses it is important for nurses to understand their role and limitations when working with patients considering or planning to access the MAiD program. In this episode we chat with Dr. Lauren Kimball about her first hand experience in the provision of MAiD.

As the dust settles on our first few years as nurses, Phil and I sit down to reminisce about our experiences as new grads and what we wish we had known when we started out. If you are a student, a new grad, or are just feeling the pressure to get it all done in a day, then this episode is for you!

This season I am joined by Phil, a Neuro ICU RN. We will be talking about everything from being a new grad to end-of-life care. Tune in every other Tuesday to share in our conversations about what makes us love nursing and what we can do to support each other in this profession.

Safe staffing ratios is a topic that has come up in nearly every conversation so far on Working Short and today we will be continuing that conversation. From working short, to not having enough nurses in the province, to waitlists to get into nursing school, and more, there is a clear shortage amongst all of these and it affects more than just nurses, it affects everyone in BC.

Nursing can be a fitting career choice for many, but what happens and what options are there for when you want a change in your career?

This week, we are talking with Carly Morrison, a registered nurse who started her nursing career as an oncology nurse, but has since become a travel nurse and traveled to many remote areas of Canada to be a nurse.

A career in nursing can bring a lot of opportunities, and you don’t have to stay with just one if you want to change roles.