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Healthcare systems and health professionals are facing a litany of stressors that have been compounded by the pandemic, and consequently, this has further perpetuated suboptimal mental health and burnout in nursing. The purpose of this paper is to report select findings from a larger, national study exploring gendered experiences of mental health, leave of absence (LOA), and return to work from the perspectives of nurses and key stakeholders. Given the breadth of the data, this paper will focus exclusively on the qualitative results from 53 frontline Canadian nurses who were purposively recruited for their workplace insight. This paper focuses on the substantive theme of "Breaking Point," in which nurses articulated a multiplicity of stress points at the individual, organizational, and societal levels that amplified burnout and accelerated mental health LOA from the workplace. These findings exemplify the complexities that underlie nurses' mental health and burnout and highlight the urgent need for multipronged individual, organizational, and structural interventions. Robust and timely interventions are needed to restore the health of the nursing profession and sustain its future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with events that were the subject of an inquest into the deaths of 12 children who died while undergoing or shortly after having undergone cardiac surgery at the Winnipeg Health Sciences Centre, Manitoba, Canada, during 1994. A notable finding of the Sinclair Inquest was that nurses involved with the pediatric cardiac surgery program were concerned about the competence of the surgeon and made sustained efforts throughout 1994 to have these concerns addressed. That the nurses' concerns were not taken seriously is the central problem of this paper. Essentially, the position articulated is that gendered and gendering discourses constituted a form of power that structured the field of nurses' possible actions. These discourses constituted a resource to make nurses knowable, to produce them as certain forms of the person, and were therefore part of what governed nurses everyday conduct. Though neither simply good nor bad in themselves, in this case, these discourses had constraining effects on how nurses were able to conduct themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical assistance in dying (MAiD) and palliative sedation (PS) are both legal options in Canada that may be considered by patients experiencing intolerable and unmanageable suffering. A contentious, lively debate has been ongoing in the literature regarding the similarities and differences between MAiD and PS. The aim of this paper is to explore the propositions that MAiD and PS are essentially similar and conversely that MAiD and PS are distinctly different. The relevance of such a debate is apparent for clinicians and patients alike. Understanding the complex and multi‐faceted nuances between PS and MAiD allows patients and caregivers to make more informed decisions pertaining to end‐of‐life care. It is hoped that this paper will also serve to foster further debate and consideration of the issues associated with PS and MAiD with a view to improve patient care and the quality of both living and dying in Canada. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SHANNON V and FRENCH S. Nursing Inquiry 2005; 12: 231–239 The impact of the re-engineered world of health-care in Canada on nursing and patient outcomes The healthcare environment is knowledge driven and knowledge and human resource dependent. Despite the paucity of evidence on which to shape and evaluate organizational change, health-care in Canada has undergone many changes in the last 15 years. In the pursuit of enhanced productivity, healthcare administrators have turned to industrial and engineering models. Using available Canadian research and policy reports, and where necessary, American literature, this paper describes the impact of re-engineering on nursing and on the relationship between nursing and patient outcomes. It also identifies emerging trends and ways forward. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we examine the notion of human agency in the context of women experiencing a chronic illness. Based on two qualitative studies conducted with Canadian women of Chinese- and Anglo-descent living with diabetes, we unmask the complex power relations inherent in patient–practitioner interactions, and problematize the privileging of healthcare providers as knowers and experts on the patient’s body. Specifically, we analyse the meanings that women ascribe to their illness experience. We discuss how women experience the loss of agency in healthcare encounters, how they resist patienthood by reclaiming agency, and how healthcare providers foster agency in their interactions with women. Rather than suggesting that biomedical experts should be ‘written out’, we propose to rewrite healthcare providers as ‘reflexive practitioners’ through the construction of transformative knowledge. We argue that praxis-oriented practice, which is based on transformative knowledge, will provide the space for women and healthcare providers to enter into a new dialogue and a relation in which women can sustain a sense of self, and begin the journey of healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]