Paula Kagan – @paulakagan


Inspiration for Activism Part II –

  • Keynote address at AWHONN (Association of Women’s Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses)  convention, Tampa, June 26, 2018 “Creating Change: Towards Social Justice and Emancipatory Nursing” 
  • Lead Editor – Philosophies and Practices of Emancipatory Nursing: Social Justice as Praxis (2014)
  • Editorial – “Innovation: Only Radical Change Will DoAdvances in Nursing Science  Vol 36 No 4,  2013
  • Author, Historical voices of resistance: Crossing boundaries to praxis through documentary filmmaking for the public. 2009, Advances in Nursing Science, 32, 19–32.
  • Member ACLU, Emily’s LIst, SPLC – I support these organization because each is oriented toward progressive, anti-racist, and social justice work. I give money, sign petitions as needed, and make calls to 202-225-2131 Congress.
  • National Disaster Deployment Red Cross – Recently deployed to Houston after Hurricane Harvey and as part of a jump team of health professionals helped open 4 shelters in 8 days. The most vulnerable in society were our clients and how they are treated and fare in environmental crisis does not reflect well on the US government. We did the best we could to care for folks with limited resources and witnessed plenty of racism and the stark contrast between haves and have-nots post disaster. The nurses from around the country though, were dedicated and excellent!
  • Radical Nurse Educator – I am inspired by bel hooks’ Teaching to Transgress so I teach graduate courses in theory, ethics, policy, philosophy of science, and research – all from intersectional, critical feminist, and postcolonial perspectives. I revised all my syllabi to reflect the value of progressive social reform, innovation, and social justice. I also developed and taught Women’s Health, Health at the Margins, and Lesbian Health Matters, all courses that reflect social justice tenets. I highlight the importance of understanding politics, institutional and governmental infrastructure, and systematic racism in the US as part of nursing practice. I encourage deep self reflection to understand the oppressor within each of us and social activism to transform and heal the world.  As an affiliated faculty in Women’s and Gender Studies, I was Interim Chair of that Department in 2014 – 2015.

Protesting the war in Viet Nam – 1967 – Detroit, MI. While in high school very active in the Detroit Committee to End the War. A few later, the war unrelenting, I was arrested twice in one day in Ypsilanti, MI for protesting the same war.

Robin Cogan (1960 – )


Inspiration for Activism Part II – 

  • Blogger, writer and activist on The Relentless School Nurse
  • Founder of #SchoolNursesDemandAction
    • Nurses Demand Action is a grassroots movement of nurses from many disciplines that have joined together to bring attention to the public health crisis of gun violence. Nurses can use our leverage as the most trusted profession to frame complex social issues from a nursing perspective. The Parkland shootings have activated healthcare providers across the country to speak up, and out, about the public health epidemic of gun violence. Tackling this issue will take a multi-tiered, multi-sector approach and that includes the voices, talents, and leadership of nurses.
      • Develop common understanding and language among health and community groups, leaders, and sectors to greatly elevate violence as a health issue
      • Increase policies to support health approaches to violence prevention
      • Change practices to increase the utilization of health and community solutions to violence prevention
      • Examine opportunities for the health approach to advance racial and health equity
      • Develop additional multi-sector partnerships and coalitions to strengthen the Movement and its relationship to the efforts of related movements to support healthier, safer, more equitable outcomes for all communities.
  • Producer of podcasts and videos addressing issues of school safety and nursing activism
  • Guest Editorial in March-April issue of Nursing Economic$ titled “Why I Became a School Nurse Activist”
  • Co-Founder of the “Community Cafe Initiative”  – a grassroots collaboration has formed that includes the voices of families, community members, providers and school nurses

Jerry Soucy


Inspiration for Activism Part II –

  • Conducting a program series in Concord, MA throughout October 2018 to discuss the final arc towards the end of life – “So you’re going to die…” co-sponsored by the Good Shepherd Institute in Newton and Death Nurse LLC of Concord. Download PDF for details
  • Participant in the 2018 Nursing Activism Think Tank.
  • Author of “Death Nurse” blog
  • Expert nurse for patients and families facing serious illness and end of life.
  • Certified in palliative care and hospice.
  • Experienced in multiple settings, including specialty intensive care (high-risk bone marrow transplant, neuroscience), hemodialysis, inpatient palliative care, and hospice care in the community.
  • Provides case management, consultation, advocacy, and education for clinicians, caregivers, and the community.
  • Jerry’s story – “Nursing is intelligent Caring.” I’d be in the story of nursing as beneficiary, participant, and evangelist. The result would be informed patients and families who know more and demand better; more competent, proficient, and expert clinicians, caregivers, and communities; and more positive outcomes for patients and families facing serious illness and care at end of life.

Webinar on Digital Stories in Nursing Education


Please join Nurstory and StoryCenter on Wednesday, September 19th, at 11am Pacific Time/2pm Eastern Time for a FREE one-hour webinar, Using Digital Stories in Nursing Education.

Click here to register!

In this current era of media overload, personal stories that are honest and emotionally compelling can make important contributions to nursing education, compassion fatigue, and practice. We’ll specifically focus on:

1) Professionalism and the inherent values of altruism, autonomy, human dignity, integrity, and social justice are fundamental to the discipline of nursing

2) Synthesize concepts, including psycho-social dimensions and cultural diversity

3) Health care advocacy (begins by understanding a perspective other than your own)

Then we’ll go over the history of the Nurstory project as well as ideas for and, examples of, the use of Nurstory process and products in Teaching and Learning:

  • Reflective Practice– Prompt students to reflect on a story, promote dialogue, counter narrative, personal exchange and inquiry
  • Student Centered Teaching & Learning – Increases student visibility & voice through reflective practice & sensitivity to diverse perspectives.
  • Inter-professional Collaboration: Create student digital stories (across education & with other health professional students & share).
  • Ethics – Examine nursing ethics & professional practice.
  • Teach & Learn Dialogue versus Discussion – Practice listening, presence, synthesis of perspectives and tell more stories
  • Influence Policy/Nurse Activism – Select a story that might be used to influence policy makers.
  • Research – Thematic analysis across stories to better understand phenomenon of interest.
  • Self-Care – Expression of self for better understanding and shared perspectives.

Since the late 1990s, StoryCenter has been collaborating with public health practitioners, researchers, and grassroots organizers on the development of unique, community-based and technology-based methods (eg, mobile, social media, web) for getting stories out into the world. Nurstory, a project specific to the narratives that nurses carry, was started in 2007.

Join us for an introduction to current thinking on strategies and platforms for creating and utilizing first-person stories of the experiences of nurses.

Raeann Genevieve LeBlanc (1967 – )


Inspiration for Activism Part II – 

  • Participant in the 2018 Nursing Activist Think Tank; served as facilitator for story circles.
  • Human Rights, Animal Rights, LGBTQIA Rights, Public Health Activist and Advocate,
  • Empowerment through Story-telling Activism (Nurstory), Kindness as a Social Justice Act, Emancipatory Nursing Practice, Anti-Oppression Activism and Advocate for Social Change — Small Acts Matter, Community Gardener & Cyclist
  • Mantras: “Our actions show what it is we value” & “Hope smiles on effort”
  • History of specific activist involvement:
    • 2017- Nurstory Scholar – Story telling for social change and social justice
    • 2016-2017: Teaching for Inclusion, Diversity & Equity Fellow
    • 2012- Public Health Association Activist – Diversity & Social Justice Nursing
    • 2001-:  Animal rights (No Kill Activist, No Animal Left Behind, Socially Responsible Medicine, Antivivisection in Science, Education, & Alternatives to Animal Testing)
    • 1997-:  Preservation of Community Gardening Action & Bicycle/Pedestrian Rights
    • 1986: International Peace Camp –  Activism for International Understanding and Peace