“I have come to learn that it is fundamental for mental health nurses to establish relationships of trust and provide care to people who are in need, setting aside any bias or prejudice. What this means is that, as mental health nurses, you are championing human rights on a daily basis by simply doing your jobs. It must seem so ordinary to you as you go about your lives, but your ordinary is extraordinary.”
Sharina Smith
Communications and Publications Officer
Australian College of Mental Health Nurses
September 2018

Cite in text
(Smith, 2018. p. 2)

Cite in reference list
Smith, S. (2018, September). Welcome. ACMHN News. Spring 2018 edition. Australian College of Mental Health Nurses: Canberra.

Context

I was flicking through the most recent edition of ACMHN News, themed “mental health and human rights”, one last time before consigning it the recycling bin. Sharina Smith is editor of the publication, and always offers a short “welcome” column introducing the content. Stopping my trip to the bin, the three sentences quoted above jumped off the page.

It’s instructive to have someone from an unrelated field (in Sharina’s case marketing and communications), examine mental health nursing through their lens of education and experience. Sharina’s comments shine a spotlight on an incredibly important part of our work that we often take for granted.

Just as the paper of the magazine deserves to be recycled, so do Sharina’s observations about human rights and mental health nursing. That’s the purpose of liberating the excerpt above from the printed page to the internet.

End

Sincere thanks to Sharina Smith, and all the office staff at ACMHN. Your ongoing support of Australian mental health nurses is very much appreciated.

Find out more about ACMHN here: www.acmhn.org

Paul McNamara, 10 November 2018

Short URL meta4RN.com/ordinary