Presented at the Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction's <a href="https://issuesofsubstance.ca/">Issues of Substance</a> conference, Ottawa, Ontario (November 25-27, 2019).
<p>Opioid overdoses remain a significant public health issue in British Columbia. BC’s Centre for Disease Control observed the high water mark of the crisis in January of 2017 and March 2018, when the province saw an annualized death rate of nearly 3.5/100,000. Today, the death rate has subsided to 1.45/100,000 (BCCDC, 2019). Irvine et al. (2019) attribute this decrease to a suite of harm reduction measures introduced by public health authorities.</p>
<p>Although substance use patterns in post-secondary institutions are a well-studied phenomenon, there is little recent and local evidence to capture a useful description of students’ substance use in relation to recent mounting risks from the opioid crisis in BC. As such, the objective of this study is to explore students’ substance use patterns, and their understanding of related harm-reduction information.</p>
<p>The study established a clear understanding of students’ current substance use patterns and harm reduction practices across the Greater Vancouver Area. The researchers will use the data to support and reinforce harm reduction intervention programs throughout the college. The study was conducted at Douglas College in British Columbia. Douglas College is a public post-secondary institution located in Coquitlam and New Westminster. The college offers a variety of career programs, transfer course credits, continuing education, and associate degrees (Douglas College, 2019). It is home to 24,801 students, with 4,210 of those students being international students (Institutional Effectiveness Office, 2019). It currently does not offer on-site health services nor residency for students making the researchers’ harm reduction interventions essential on campus. Funding was obtained through The Research and Scholarly Activity Project Fund at Douglas College.</p>
The Ethic of Care: A Moral Compass for Canadian Nursing Practice, is unique from other nursing ethics textbooks in several key ways. The book adds a heightened dimension to the already rich knowledge in the field of applied nursing ethics and the ethic of care. The author argues that the ethic of care, or the moral imperative to act justly, be the guiding compass for everything that nurses do. It is with passion and conviction that nurses are encouraged to embody the ethic of care as a "lived virtue." Nurses are also inspired to be the leaders of tomorrow by working toward achieving accountability and sustainability in the Canadian publicly funded health care system and by effectively addressing social inequities. At the end of each chapter the author conveys real life case studies, as derived from her experiences as a critical care nurse, psychiatric nurse clinician and former Coroner. These vignettes bring the subject to life and serve as a means for applying newly acquired ethical knowledge.
