During the period following the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Indigenous nurses across the country continue to practice in many different clinical environments and their practice cuts across many clinical specialties.

Some choose to work in mainstream urban environments. Some have returned to their communities. Some hope to make a difference in influencing policy or education.

The commonality among all Indigenous nurses is that they also bring their unique Indigenous nursing knowledge to their practice. This is expressed in the Indigenous knowledge they hold and how that knowledge is cultivated and harmonized in their practice. Indigenous knowledge covers a range of values and beliefs present in First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples’ ways of knowing and being. It includes knowledge stemming from the various creation stories, healing ways, language, and ceremonies.

Indigenous nurses in Canada have been combining their Western education with a firm grounding in their own languages, cultures, and healing traditions to shape the field of Indigenous-nursing knowledge and it is utilized to advance and shape the current context of nursing practices. Our knowledge includes all generations and cycles in time and space for the manifestation of compassion and respect in the development of our self-understanding associated with identity formation, which is central to the creation of Indigenous knowledge.

The Indigenous Nurses Day webinar and gathering will feature speakers Dr. Paul O’Byrne, Dr. Bernice Downey and Dr. Sandra Carroll.

The event will be on Wednesday, May 8 from 12 pm until 2 pm at the McMaster main campus.

All are welcome to attend. This is a free event, but please RSVP to leeays@mcmaster.ca

For more information, please contact Alex Lee at 905-525-9140, ex. 22340.