Timeless Topics

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss everything from the rise in distrust in medical professionals and standards of care to building safe relationships and the importance of accountability. We are honored to be joined by Chantel Morin! Chantel is a nurse educator, adult born preterm, mother to three children born preterm, and co-founder of T.E.N.D.E.R. Services. We're grateful you're here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Reflect on a recent time where a patient has expressed distrust or declined a recommended treatment. How did you handle the conversation? Looking back, would you have handled it differently? 

• How do you practice being present and not merely performing your role? What is needed for you to do that consistently?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Practice Standards for Neonatal Nursing in Ontario 

• TENDER Services

• Paige Church Behavioural Phenotype Prematurity  

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss everything from how broken the healthcare system is to unit culture to the importance of belonging in all relationships -- including those between clinicians. In true Timeless Topics nature, we try to answer the question "How do we fix it?" Please let us know how you feel we did.  We're grateful you're here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Reflect on your relationship with where healthcare is culture-wise. How do you navigate its ups and downs? 

• What are some ways that you build community in and out of your workplace?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• May 2026 FCC Taskforce Webinar

  Family Centered Care Taskforce         

• Identifying stigmatizing and positive/preferred language in obstetric clinical notes using natural language processing - PubMed   

• Stigmatizing and Positive Language in Birth Clinical Notes Associated With Race and Ethnicity - PubMed

• Toward equitable documentation: Evaluating ChatGPT's role in identifying and rephrasing stigmatizing language in electronic health records - PubMed 

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss everything from the compounding nature of trauma in the NICU to how an individual is shaped by their lived experiences - positive, negative, and neutral to how our words have power. We wrap up the episode with a bit of a soft launch, so be sure to listen until the end. We're grateful you're here with us. Tracey had some video issues, but we persevered! We are so grateful you are here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• What are some ways you practice humility in your work setting? 

• Reflect on the way you show up in the face of someone else's trauma. What are your strengths and weaknesses?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Trauma and Violence - What Is Trauma and Its Effects? | SAMHSA        

• Identity-First Language - Autistic Self Advocacy Network  

• Sacred Instructions: Indigenous Wisdom for Living Spirit-Based Change - Sherri Mitchell        

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss everything from microaggressions to the insidious and pervasive nature of racism and other systems of oppression to gumbo. Yes, gumbo. We wrap up the episode with an introductory bookclub list, so stay tuned for that! We'd love to hear what other titles you would recommend. We're grateful you're here with us. We start out the episode hot talking about an experience one of us had with defining microaggressions. We are so grateful you are here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Have you ever experienced or committed an act of microaggression? Reflect on your experience(s). 

• Have you read any of the books we shared during this episode? If so, what lessons do you carry with you from them?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• “Weathering” and Age Patterns of Allostatic Load Scores Among Blacks and Whites in the United States - PMC       

• Microaggressions are a big deal: How to talk them out and when to walk away  

• Full article: Who Gets to Be a Child? Clinical and Cultural Reflections on Racism, White Infantilization, and Kyle Rittenhouse  

• Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? by Beverly Daniel Tatum | Hachette Book Group

• Hood Feminism – MIKKI KENDALL

• Beacon Press: White Fragility

• How to Be an Antiracist by Ibram X. Kendi: 9780525509301 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

• Decolonizing Therapy

• The Body Keeps The Score | Bessel van der Kolk, MD.

• My Grandmother’s Hands paperback – Central Recovery Press        

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss everything from interspecialty collaboration to supporting the family's full experience to calling out that thriving in a high stress environment like L&D or the NICU isn't mutually exclusive to practicing with a foundation of compassion. We are honored to be joined by Rose Horton as our special guest! Rose is the founder and CEO of NotOnMyWatch Consulting Partners. Her work centers around empowering nurses to use their voices, roles, and power to fight for equitable outcomes for all pregnant people and their newborns. We are so grateful you are here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Reflect on your practices around informed consent and shared decision making. 

• How are they similar? How are they different? How could you grow your practice to be more affirming and trauma-responsive?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Interventions to address inequities in infant mortality and morbidity in the NICU and beyond: A focus on the mother-infant dyad - ScienceDirect      

• A Woman Asked To Be Saved Over Her Baby In Case Of Childbirth Complications 

• Pregnant persons and birth partners' experiences of shared decision-making during pregnancy and childbirth: An umbrella review - ScienceDirect 

• The importance of shared decision-making in the neonatal intensive care unit | Journal of Perinatology 

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we discuss the importance of stepping out to create and support your community. Things like learned helplessness and a scarcity mindset keep us believing that an individual cannot impact a system, but y'all know that we don't subscribe to that over here! The power of human connection and community is stronger than systems that promote hierarchy and supremacy.  We are so grateful you are here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• What are the ways in which you can step out for your community?

• Reflect on your own self-awareness. How does it serve you to be aware of your own patterns? 

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Freedom House Ambulance: The FIRST Responders | PBS     

• Black Angels Book   

• National Black Nurses Association

• From Scarcity to Solidarity - Standing Up for Racial Justice

• Serve and Return: Back-and-forth exchanges 

• Harry Harlow's Monkey Experiments: 3 Important Findings

• Clear Is Kind. Unclear Is Unkind. - Brené Brown            

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode Dr. William Hull joins us to share his family’s NICU story and his professional insight for topics like family-centered care, giving everyone in the NICU grace, and honoring vulnerability. Relationship building and active listening are crucial steps to facilitating safety for families and clinicians. We are so grateful you are here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Reflect on experiences you have had with families. Do you notice a difference in how you relate to birthing and non-birthing parents?

• How do you sustain yourself while working with fragile babies and families? 

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Postpartum Depression Screening Practices in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: Opportunities for Improvement - PubMed     

• Supporting Fathers in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Scoping Review - PubMed   

• Addressing the Minority Tax: Perspectives From Two Diversity Leaders on Building Minority Faculty Success in Academic Medicine

• NICU virtual rounds: Feasibility and acceptability of enhanced access for families and care providers

• NICU Virtual Family-Centered Rounds: A Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial 

• The NICU Dad            

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we start out talking about fathers and nonbirthing parents in the NICU and find our way to the ways healthcare has navigated culture throughout our careers, and the need for human centered skills. Individualizing interactions helps to promote safety and community and there is power in togetherness. We are so grateful you are here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Reflect on your experiences caring for patients with a different cultural background than your own. How did you navigate it? Would you change anything?

• Do you have a colleague who helps you feel safe when things get hard? Reflect on the relationship you share with them and what makes safety accessible. 

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Rediscovering Humanity in Healthcare: The B.U.F.F.E.R. Approach    

• Cultural Humility: Retraining and retooling nurses to provide equitable cancer care - PMC  

• Wall‐mounted folding chairs to promote resident physician sitting at the hospital bedside         

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

Welcome back to Timeless Topics! In this episode we start out sharing advice we would give to a nursing student who wants to work in the NICU and we somehow end up talking about saviorism, bias, and how to have difficult conversations. It’s a true Timeless Topics journey! We are so grateful you are here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• Have you ever witnessed saviorism in your setting?

• Reflect on your past experiences with altruism. Could there have been a "shadow side" to those actions?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Creating the Healthcare Racial Justice Assessment Tool (HC-RJAT): A Novel Tool to Identify Modifiable Loci of Structural Racism in the Healthcare Setting to Guide Equity-Focused Improvements | Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities   

• Publications — Joan Halifax 

• Race and Reactions to Women's Expressions of Anger at Work: Examining the Effects of the "Angry Black Woman" Stereotype

• DR. YABA BLAY: WE CAN DO HARD THINGS EP 79         

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛

We’re excited to continue our first guest episode featuring Mia Malcolm! Be sure to check out episode 17 for the beginning of the conversation. Mia is an all around fantastic human being, equity, diversity, inclusion, belonging, and justice educator, and NICU parent. Her son, Gavin, was born at 24 weeks and spent 268 days in the NICU. We get comfortable being uncomfortable and dive into topics like equity, perfectionism, expectations for gratitude, and redefining terms like healthcare hero. At times this conversation may be uncomfortable or unexpected. We invite you to sit with that discomfort and reflect on what bubbles up. The discussion was so rich, we had to split it into two episodes! We are so grateful you are here with us. We look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Reflection prompts for this episode:

• How can you intentionally make way for compassion?

• Reflect on the concept of "doing to" instead of "doing with." How does that show up in your practice?

Resources we mentioned during this episode:

• Creating psychologically safe learning environments to counter perfectionism in medicine  

• Perfectionism as a predictor of physician burnout - PMC       

Do you have feedback or suggestions? You can find us on social media as @TimelessTopicsNICU, and our email address is [email protected]. Please share with your friends and colleagues!

-Jessi 🖤, Tracey 💙, and Mary 💛