Caroline Dorsen

Wildfires are increasing globally and pose significant health risks, particularly for vulnerable populations, including pregnant individuals, infants, children, older adults, people with mental health conditions, and those with chronic illnesses. Climate change has intensified these events, making them a pressing health equity concern. Nurses play a vital role in communicating prevention strategies, supporting vulnerable populations and other at-risk individuals and families, and advocating for policies that reduce wildfire exposure and advance health equity. This article aims to equip readers with a practical understanding of wildfire-related health impacts and vulnerabilities, as well as the nurse’s role in risk assessment, planning, and response when wildfires occur. Standardizing training and providing resources can strengthen nurses’ capacity to respond to wildfires and other climate-related disasters.

Federal policy changes under the Trump administration led to the abrupt termination of hundreds of National Institutes of Health –funded projects, disproportionately affecting research on sexual and gender minority (SGM) health. This manuscript presents a structured reflective synthesis of contemporaneous field notes and facilitated summit discussions from the 2025 SGM National Nursing Summit, a national convening of nursing students, researchers, administrators, and clinicians. We synthesize the concerns, tensions, and priorities that surfaced as participants grappled with the implications of these changes for SGM research, education, and practice. Five interrelated areas emerged: generational differences in how the current moment is understood; experiences of institutional betrayal; uncertainty around whether to persist or redirect SGM-focused work; calls for greater intersectional solidarity; and growing career precarity. We conclude with practical recommendations for supporting researchers, strengthening professional networks, and sustaining SGM nursing scholarship, and offering insights for nursing leaders navigating policy and workforce challenges.

Faculty focusing on LGBTQ+ communities often face structural challenges within academic institutions. These include limited access to research funding, difficulties publishing in some academic journals, and increased oversight from Institutional Review Boards. Typically, traditional promotion and tenure systems emphasize narrow definitions of scholarly output, overlooking the diverse contributions of researchers in LGBTQ+ health. Developed through iterative synthesis of conference working-group discussions from the 2025 National Nursing Summit on Sexual and Gender Minority (SGM) Health, this paper introduces a comprehensive evaluation framework designed for LGBTQ+ health researchers, with potential relevance to other marginalized groups. Rooted in discussions among researchers, students, and administrators, we outline 11 domains of scholarly contribution, each supported by rationale and examples, to help institutions value community-engaged, justice-driven scholarship. Addressing these structural gaps is vital for fostering a more equitable and inclusive academic culture.

Background: The recent wave of clinical trials of psychedelic substances among patients with life-limiting illness has largely focused on individual healing. This most often translates to a single patient receiving an intervention with researchers guiding them. As social isolation and lack of connection are major drivers of current mental health crises and group work is expected to be an important aspect of psychedelic assisted psychotherapy, it is essential that we understand the role of community in psychedelic healing. Objectives: To explore how psychedelic guides in the United States discuss the role of “community” in naturalistic psychedelic groups. Methods: This is a secondary qualitative data study of data from a larger modified ethnographic study of psychedelic plant medicine use in the US. Fifteen facilitators of naturalistic psychedelic groups were recruited via snowball sampling. Content analysis was used to identify themes. Results: Participants viewed the concept of community as essential to every aspect of psychedelic work, from the motivation to use psychedelics, to the psychedelic dosing experience and the integration of lessons learned during psychedelic experiences into everyday life. Themes and subthemes were identified. Theme 1: The arc of healing through community (Subthemes: Community as intention, the group psychedelic journey experience, community and integration); Theme 2: Naturally occurring psychedelic communities as group therapy (Subthemes [as described in Table 2]: Belonging, authenticity, corrective experience, trust, touch). Significance: Results suggest that existing knowledge about therapeutic group processes may be helpful in structuring and optimizing group psychedelic work. More research is needed on how to leverage the benefit of community connection in the therapeutic psychedelic context, including size and composition of groups, selection and dosing of psychedelic substances in group settings, facilitator training, and role of community integration. Psychedelic groups may provide benefits that individual work does not support.

The significance of trauma on the nursing workforce is of utmost importance in graduate nursing education. Competing roles of graduate nursing students, such as the demands of nursing practice and advanced education, can increase vulnerability to trauma and chronic stress. Stressors associated with graduate nursing education can significantly impact student and program outcomes. Incorporating a trauma-informed approach to graduate-level education can be an essential component to support the needs of this student population. Creating and sustaining a trauma-informed academic setting requires awareness, open-mindedness, empathy, and incorporating educational practices that promote healing and mitigate harm. Nurse faculty can play a pivotal role in restructuring curriculum design to include principles of a trauma-informed approach. This article reviews what is known about trauma informed care and considers strategies to apply a trauma-informed framework to graduate nursing education.

The research and use of psychedelic medicines to treat common mental health disorders has increased substantially in the past 2 decades. At the same time, knowledge is relatively uncommon among midwives regarding (1) the relative benefits of psychedelic‐assisted therapy, (2) best practices associated with the delivery of psychedelic‐assisted therapy, and (3) responsible integration of this potentially useful intervention into mental health treatment plans. The purpose of this review is to describe current applications of psychedelic medicines to treat common mental health disorders, to describe the current legal status of these medicines used in this context, and to explore the potential for midwifery practice in this area with further training. This article also addresses the disparities regarding LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC populations in relation to this topic and their historical exclusion from research and treatment access in this field.