The Website
Edgy and innovative, unconventional and witty, The Renegade RN serves to highlight the complexity of being a rural nurse and the challenges faced as a working mother. Fuelled by feminist ideals, modern values, and professional integrity, The Renegade RN is a blog for those wanting to explore both their professional and personal lives through dialogue and connectivity. Topics include: social justice and rural health care, health promotion for women and families, and practical tips for the novice nurse and critical analysis for the expert.
The Creator
Michael-Ann Marie, lives and works in a small hospital nestled deep in the ponderosa pines of the Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Filled with unique challenges and benefits she has developed a comprehensive skill set and autonomous practice working in a rural Emergency Department. She acts as a voice for rural nursing and has become a leader and mentor to many nurses looking to become rural practitioners. She has two amazing children and a supportive husband and hopes to continue her professional development by completing her master’s Degree and furthering her passion for teaching by creating and facilitating nursing education.
The Revolution
Hi, I am Michael-Ann! Welcome to the Renegade RN.
About seven years ago my husband and I traded in our amenities and our anonymity of big city life to move to a small community. I got a job and he stayed home to raise our children. It was the greatest decision of our married life – but unconventional.
My path to becoming a rural nurse was also unconventional. I went to a big city university and was lucky to grow up in a fast-paced work environment. I did well at school and loved the program. I wasn’t your typical nursing student, older in age, less type A and more type chill. I excelled at connecting with patients and making diagnoses. Many instructors commented to me that they hoped I didn’t leave nursing for medicine, and although at the time I didn’t think much of it, I was a generalist who valued autonomy – but unconventional.
I couldn’t see myself specializing, I tried to fit my practice into a box, but it wouldn’t fit. I loved pediatrics, maternity, critical care, you name it, but also, I had a strong desire for research, politics, leadership and change – still unconventional. I was at my heart a rural nurse and it took a leap of faith to realize it.
Now here I am with ten years of nursing experience behind me, I look upon a profession that is in great need for role models – nurses to share what they do and who they are with the world. We are a strong vital part of every individual, community, and nation. Across the world there are nurses living life and making change. Some of our voices are loud and others are more stoic in nature. At times we are dampened with our professional role in an organization. I have come to a point, where I want to learn what I want to learn, and when I want to learn it and explore what I want to explore. I have too much expertise to have my voiced quieted by the noise of modern health care systems.
I started this website and blog to highlight my lived experience and use my voice for what I deem important. The internet is a perfect medium to connect with others and share knowledge, and that is my revolution – unrestrained conversations on nursing through the lens of womanhood.
One of my instructors in nursing school said to me, if you wrote a book, I would read it, well this isn’t exactly a book, but the start of a story.
Peace and Love.
