Privilege In Nursing

Over the past few weeks, working on the various aspects of this assignment elicited many revelations about what makes me who I am, how these factors create privilege in my life, and how that affects my personal and professional relationships. Through class readings, experiencing vulnerability, trust, and responsibility while creating plaster of paris masks, and decorating my mask to reflect the person I hope to bring to practice, I feel confident about the person I am and how to highlight the positives while minimizing the negatives in my own nursing practice.

I was born and raised in Southern Maine with the love and support of my biological parents as well as my older sister, Reba. I was raised as a nondenominational Christian in a very

McIntosh (1998) is able to word my thoughts when writing about her own white privilege: “I had come to see white privilege as an invisible package of unearned assets that I could count on cashing in each day but about which I was meant to remain oblivious” (p. 207). That being said, being able to recognize one’s privilege and then using the knowledge to help instead of hurt the relationships and dynamics between all people, is what is important when it comes to privilege. My privilege of having had access to not only primary, but a continued education, is something that I need to recognize because it is a privilege of mine, and it very well may not be of all of my patients. Remembering this each and every day, and with each and every patient, working as a nurse, is going to be not only very important, but also a very large challenge. In addition, as a Caucasian female who is going into the nursing profession, I am not only a part of the majority of American citizens in terms of race, I am going to be part of the ninety-two percent of nurses who are female (Daly, Speedy, Jackson, Lambert, and Lambert, 2005, p.

He uses a metaphor to explain the importance of these roots: “practitioners are viewed as ‘machines’ that tirelessly and efficiently crank our cost-effective service units. Scope is limited, duration short. If we enlarge scope and duration, the then topsoil has enduring value” (Karl, 1992, p. 4). That being said, a nurse can’t effectively do his or her job without having strong roots that “animate the practitioner’s being and capacity to be [at practice]” (Karl, 1992, p. 5). This is why I included various words on my mask to remind me of my roots and keep me balanced while at practice. Karl (1992) describes being balanced as involving “care of [the] body, mind, spirit, and relationships” (p. 5). Because of this reasoning, my inspirational words included: faith, strength, happiness, love, trust, and hope. If I am able to remind myself of these important things while I am at practice, I will hopefully be able to maintain balance in all aspects of