5/13/25 and 5/20/25 Journal Club (via Zoom) - Seeing the Field: Applying Watson's Unitary Caring Science to Discern Racism

Dr. LaTonia Clark Chalmers is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Nursing, and Dr. Kaija Freborg is an associate professor at Sonoma State University, School of Nursing and Health Sciences. LaTonia and Kaija have built a transpersonal caring, interracial relationship that is rooted in their individual and collective pursuit to embody Human Caring Science. They met 5 years ago when LaTonia was a guest speaker in Kaija’s graduate antiracism nursing course. This-universe-brought-us-together meeting has blossomed into a partnership centered around a genuine human-to-human connection, relational accountability, and a commitment to advancing health equity, social justice, and wholeness for all. Soon, we found ourselves collaborating in scholarship, noting that through our respective racial identities, we are able to truly model an authentic, heart-centered nursing relationship, which benefits the facilitation of educational and reflective processes in antiracism work. Simply speaking, there are things LaTonia can say as a Black woman that Kaija cannot and there are things Kaija can say as a white woman that LaTonia cannot. This mutual, symbiotic relationship led to Human Caring Science-based professional development offerings and teaching strategies, which we disseminated at the International Association of Human Caring’s annual conference in 2021. After concluding our presentation, Dr. Zane Wolf encouraged us to publish highlighting the need for us to share how antiracism can be addressed via a caring consciousness.