Reflections on social justice: One nurse's experiences in Rwanda

Despite its' presence as a central tenet of the nurse profession, the role of social justice has changed among nurses and their practice over the past fifty years. Shifting roles within the field of nursing have brought clinical focus away from the population level roots of nursing to the individual level care provision that is the most commonly associated with nursing practice today. From it's theoretical basis in nursing curricula to finding meaning in the day to day struggles faced in the clinical environment, there are many different methods of applying the idea of social justice to nursing practice. In this presentation, one nurse will share her experience learning about the meaning of applying social justice to nursing practice while working in a rural hospital in Rwanda. Lessons about social justice from patients and clinicians alike provide powerful examples of the fundamentals of nursing and are inspiration for practice in any setting.