An exclusive interview: Pushing the boundaries on holistic & cannabis nursing

One thing I have learned across my own healing journeys is that we do heal alone, but we heal best in community. When others are there to witness and when we're able to release things, and when we recognize that we're not alone - loneliness, we know, is a “killer.” It's just as damaging to your body as smoking. So we've got to figure out ways we can connect, that we can share our common experiences, that we can find solutions for issues, and that we can listen and hear each other. No one's going to do this for us, no one's going to elevate the profession of nursing except for us. Medicine is not really interested in it. We need to take more control of it, and set our limits and boundaries, which is hard to do when we come from traumatic backgrounds. As NurseDeck grows and evolves, are there ways to have things like advocacy training and learning things about setting boundaries? And how do you communicate effectively? And how do you affect change? Hopefully, those are all things you’re thinking about to really become a hub of healing, and from that healing really stems the action in the ability to create change.

It's a challenging time right now. I want to wish us all as a profession some grace and some ease as we're on our healing journey, and that we can emerge from this stronger and healthier and ready to create a new era of nursing.

Dr. Carey Clark is a professor and the former director of Nursing Programs at Pacific College of Health Sciences where she developed the first academic medical cannabis care certificate program. Most recently, she is the editor of the Wolters-Kuhlwer textbook Cannabis: A Handbook for Nurses. She is the immediate past president of the American Cannabis Nurses Association, where she developed the initial version of the Scope and Standards for Cannabis Nurse Practice. She’s taught across the levels of nursing academia from ASN to Doctoral levels and served on many Ed.D and Ph.D. dissertation committees. She has over 40 publications in journals such as International Journal for Human Caring, Holistic Nursing Practice, Creative Nursing, and Advances in Nursing Science.

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