In the Canadian forensic psychiatric context, the concepts of risk and dangerousness interact, intersect, and morph into the notion of significant threat to the safety of the public. Stemming from the results of a critical ethnography of the Ontario Review Board, this article unpacks the central role of forensic psychiatric nursing, as an example of a 'psych' discipline (e.g., psychiatry and psychology), in a system that is built to produce risky persons and to legitimize their detention and supervision. By using excerpt of interviews conducted with nurses, ethnographic observations of Review Board hearings, and other documentary artifacts, the findings illustrate how rationalizations of risk and dangerousness are contingent on space, time, and observer. Depending on the time of the assessment or on the health-care professional who performs it, different elements including, but not limited to, mental illness, interpersonal relationships, financial instability, and sexual vulnerability, are relied upon in very fluid, interchangeable, and discretionary ways to justify findings of dangerousness. Such a dynamic expands the reach of psychiatry's legitimacy at identifying risky conduct and controlling risky persons to domains very loosely associated with the notion of dangerousness. The work of Foucault and Castel provides the theoretical backdrop on which rests the discussion and the implications for nursing.

Immigrant nurses make up a large percentage of the Australian nursing workforce. Since the support in the workplace is expected to be inclusive for all nurses, the aim of this article is to explore how support and opportunities for professional growth, learning and development are distributed across different categories of nurses working in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). An ethnographic approach has opened an examination of the everyday workplace practices in the NICU to gain insight into how nurses made sense of the social and power relations occurring between themselves and their senior colleagues and how they experienced the support and opportunities they received in their workplace. As today's workplaces such as the NICU are diverse in races, culture and experiences, the concepts of intersectionality and cultural safety assisted in identifying inequality and injustice related to such diversity. The results showed how patronage relations rendered nurses with immigrant status with major disadvantage and left them clinically and culturally vulnerable. Such inequity defeats the reasons for encouraging skilled migration of nurses and poses questions on the cultural competency of recruiting organisations. Considering how cultural safety might guide staff development offers opportunities for authentic support to culturally diverse nurses.

This study explores the perceptions of Norwegian nurses who have received assisted dying requests from terminally ill patients. Assisted dying is illegal in Norway, while in some countries, it is an option. Nurses caring for terminally ill patients may experience ethical challenges by receiving requests for euthanasia and assisted suicide. We applied a qualitative research design with a phenomenological hermeneutic approach using open individual interviews. A total of 15 registered nurses employed in pulmonary and oncology wards of three university hospitals and home care in one municipality were recruited. Four themes emerged from the analysis: (1) unprepared for the request; (2) meeting direct, indirect, and nonverbal requests; (3) working in a gray zone, and (4) feeling alone and powerless. The study found that nurses were unsure how to handle such requests due to professional uncertainty about assisted dying. Working in an environment where the topic is taboo made nurses morally uncertain, and some perceived this as moral distress. The hospital chaplain played a significant role in providing support to these nurses.

Language tests for overseas registered nurses (ORN) working outside their home country are essential for patient safety, as communication competency needs to be established in any workforce. We argue that the current employment of existing language tests is structurally and institutionally racist and disadvantages ORNs from non‐European Union (EU) and non‐White countries seeking to work in the United Kingdom. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT), we argue that existing English language tests for ORNs seeking registration in the United Kingdom are discriminatory due to the UK's racist migration policies and a regulatory body for nursing and midwifery that fails to acknowledge and understand its own institutionally racist practices.

The professionalization of modern nursing education from 1850 and forward is closely linked to values and virtues underpinned by Christian ideals, sex-based stereotypes and class. Development in the late 19th century of modern hospital medicine, combined with a scientific understanding of antisepsisand asepsis, hygiene, contagion prevention and germ theory, were highly influential insights to the dominant position of modern medicine in health care. This development constituted a key premise for what nurses, by virtue of being women, and combined with their education, could offer in terms of medical assistance. It enabled them to challenge the prevailing sex-based stereotypes- and class-based hierarchies, allowing modern nursing to retain aspects of both traditional Christian and womanly values, while at the same time adhering to the medical science paradigm. In this paper, we argue that modern nursing education developed in a context characterized by traditional female and religious values, whileat the same timebeing increasingly dominated by the influence of scientific and medical progress. This conflict between traditional and modern values caused dilemmas and tensions as the nursing profession developed. We argue further that similar dilemmas and tensions continue to pervade contemporary nursing and nursing education.

While the pervasiveness and systemic embeddedness of racism across most of our societies are self-evident to those who experience it as a consequence of their own identities and positionings, it is also patently obvious that solutions require a substantial proportion of the dominant population—those not personally disadvantaged by structural racism—to step up and take meaningful action toward change. Nursing's core values and fundamental disciplinary commitment to health for all, the rights and dignity of all persons, the equitable treatment of all in need should mean that all nurses by virtue of profession sign on to advocacy and action in this regard. Yet we know that there are far too many sad examples in which nurses themselves are the perpetrators of racist acts and/or are complicit in supporting inherently racist societal and healthcare practices. Although the central principle underlying antiracism is universal in our professional values statements and codes of ethics and built into our educational curricula and practice competencies, it has clearly not been taken up as strongly or as fully as it ought to have been. Far too many nurses remain stuck in denial and inaction, sustaining those systems of inequity rather than enacting their professional skill and authority toward doing their part to ensure fairness and justice for all. It has often been observed that "I don't see color" is a dominant normative belief held by white people – those who enjoy the privilege of not being racialized within their societies, and who consider that claim a convenient self-justification for retaining the status quo (Ansell, 2008). In the same manner that "All lives matter" has been used as a self-righteous dismissal of what the #BlackLivesMatter movement stands for, color-blindness serves to invalidate and render invisible the lived experience of everyone who does encounter prejudice related to their racial identity. It entrenches the claim that, because I am confident that I personally am not a racist, my behavior need not be called to account on this issue, and therefore I am under no obligation whatsoever to understand how my way of engaging in the world might actually be problematic to someone else. Because of this, color blindness has been depicted as the "reigning ideological buttress of a corresponding and distinct form of structural white supremacy" (Mueller, 2017, p. 220). Peeling back the layers of racism, you come to appreciate that only a minor fraction of what constitutes its impact as a powerful social determinant of health for persons who identify as Black, Indigenous, or persons of color in many societies actually takes the form of overtly racist attitudes or actions. In other words, it matters not whether you believe you have uncharitable thoughts or actions about persons of a different race from your own, but rather the central issue has to do with how much regard you are prepared to pay to the compromised lives of those who have experienced them. If you have been fortunate enough to go through life—for example, driving a car, entering a restaurant, applying for a job, seeking out health care—free of the fear that you may be unfairly judged or treated by virtue of race, then you have benefitted from a level of social privilege that is highly inequitably distributed. When you fail to appreciate that, or overtly deny that it matters, you become part of the deeply embedded and systemic problem. Getting beyond denial is a complex challenge because confronting it directly tends to trigger resistance and entrenchment. However, most of us do not recognize and act upon our problematic attitudes until something or someone brings them overtly to our attention. Increasingly, many organizations and institutions are supporting an array of strategic collective initiatives to shift that confrontation beyond individual blaming/shaming and toward shared recognition within the community that we all have a great deal to learn. Once that shell of denial begins to crack and there is an opening into recognizing one's own part in the social positioning that allows racism to persist, those in a position of privilege often seek a path forward—a stance that will allow them to demonstrate distance from the racism they have now come to see, and one that will identify them as constructive to the cause. And that quest is fraught with complexities. This special issue of Nursing Inquiry exposes us to a range of important perspectives on the notion of what antiracism entails in nursing, in health care, and in disciplinary scholarship and action. Some of the authors draw on their lived experience, and that of the populations they have studied and/or worked with, to deepen our insights as to how racism plays out in our practices, processes, and policies. Others offer a more theoretical challenge, inviting us into new ways of conceptualizing and engaging with the ideas that sustain racism in our societies and systems. And many challenge us into considering meaningful action so that we are exposed to options for moving beyond what has been termed performative allyship—positioning ourselves as partners in the cause without being prepared to commit to the very hard work that is required for societal change (Erskin & Bilimora, 2019). The term is used in a derogatory manner because the behaviors it references betray a self-righteousness that keeps us from the continual and ongoing self-learning that characterizes authentic and substantive allyship. Where we allow ourselves to stay stagnant in this partial awareness, we are smugly distancing ourselves from the problem (e.g., "Some of my best friends are….") and continuing to resist the more painful and difficult prospect of unlearning and re-learning. Only when we acknowledge that this unlearning will require a lifetime, and realize that remaining open to the conversation is our only hope, can we push past a merely performative stance and toward finding our own best place within the active global collective process of undoing the profound harm of racism. And, as Ihedru-Anderson and Wahi so forcefully explain, an enormous collective effort will be required to dismantle the "recalcitrant structures that serve to maintain institutionalized racism" in nursing leadership, education, and practice globally (Ihedru-Anderson & Wahi, 2020, p. 17). We not only need to tackle our "White dominance" and inadequate antiracist competence (Bell, 2021) but to develop strategic responses to "the discourses of individualism, multiculturalism, color blindness, political correctness and denial" that have been deployed by our profession to "reinforce the belief in an essentially fair and just society while avoiding the need to acknowledge the persistence of racist discourses and ideologies" (Hilario et al., 2018, p. 1). The expression often attributed to Maya Angelou, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better"11 Angelou may have expressed the idea somewhat differently and in an interview context, but the wording of her message has become popularized in this form. See Winfrey, O. (1994, Nov 2). The Oprah Winfrey Show. https://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/the-powerful-lesson-maya-angelou-taught-oprah-video. has been popularized in the antiracism cause because it allows us a way to acknowledge (perhaps forgive, if not exonerate) ourselves for the benefits we have enjoyed because racism exists, and to mobilize that self-forgiveness into meaningful action. It is only through awareness that we can progress beyond what my colleague Jessica Kwanxwalaogwa Key has called "well-meaning but deeply harmful ways" toward the kind of authentic allyship that reflects solidarity and genuine commitment to the cause. "The world stands at a juncture of justice and Nursing must not be caught on the wrong side of history" (Moorley et al., 2020, p. 2452). I optimistically believe we have started this profoundly important conversation and begun to significantly "unsettle the silence" (Mapedzahama et al., 2012; Thorne, 2017). I invite you to read these papers individually and as a collection, stopping to pause and reflect along the way, to engage yourself not only as a scholar and professional but also as a person. What truths about you and your life do these authors expose? What new insight, or new level of insight, do these papers invite you to consider? And of course, where do you see these ideas guiding you in your own path toward being part of a profession that sees and aspires to justice and equity in this vision of health for all? And may we all find our way toward meaningful action.

Watchful waiting is a concept that is traditionally not associated with severe and enduring mental illness. This paper, however, boldly argues that the concept could be used as a ground-breaking and accessible antidote to the perceived inequality experienced by black service users experiencing both mild and severe mental illnesses in England. The novel concepts proposed in this paper are not intended to be consensual, but rather uncompromising to provoke critical thinking in mental health practice. A conceptual framework for watchful waiting in mental health is suggested.

More students than ever are electing to take part in international practicums from health-related disciplines. With the goal of better understanding the moral experiences and ethical implications of global health practicums (GHPs), the purpose of this Interpretive Descriptive study was to examine the moral uncertainty of nursing students from one university in Canada. Seventeen nurses who had participated in a GHP in their undergraduate nursing program participated in semi-structured interviews. Data were analyzed inductively using constant comparative data analysis techniques, and a thematic account of participants' experiences was developed. Findings suggest that nursing students experienced considerable amounts of moral uncertainty during their GHP. Most often, participants' experiences of uncertainty stemmed from a misalignment between their expectations and reality, including encountering different approaches to healthcare, being situated in new cultural and clinical care environments, and grappling with how best to stay within one's scope of student professional practice. Participants inconsistently reflected on these experiences, which may present a missed opportunity for professional growth through the development of a heightened social consciousness. Educators can facilitate this process by implementing robust predeparture training for GHPs, clarifying program objectives, and providing clinical debriefing.

This article aimed to explore issues of concern related to quarantine, its social consequences and influences, challenging its effects on human behavioral expressions during social isolation. The advent of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic impacted human lives in multifarious ways, threatening the meaning of normalcy. Quarantine, lockdown, isolation, and other terms reflecting conditions limiting human freedoms have become synonymous in importance to safety, security, and survival. To understand human defiance in the face of maintaining limited mobility during the COVID-19 pandemic, reimagining situations of "unfreedoms" is explained as thinking of changes to inspire and improve the meaning of living lives meaningfully. During the pandemic, issues regarding healthcare practices and social behaviors focused much attention on interactive challenges that enhance ways to mitigate the spread of contagious diseases. Illuminating these issues, discussing concerns and highlighting recommendations to engage in alternative approaches and practices, heightens the declaration of efficiency of quarantine outcomes and effectiveness. Implications are proposed with the hope that they may lead the way forward in exercising contemporary healthcare practices.