The Gritty Nurse
by Amie Archibald-Varley
Health & FitnessE · Explicit
Latest episode
The True Cost of Care: Storytelling, Profit Motives, and Front-Line…
The True Cost of Care: Storytelling, Profit Motives, and Front-Line…
About this podcast
The Gritty Nurse is back, and NO TOPIC is off-limits! Launching in September 2025 with host Amie Archibald Varley, this podcast is dedicated to amplifying the voices of nurses and others who work in healthcare to explore the most pressing issues they face.
Join Amie as she continues to take a deep dive into powerful and often uncomfortable topics. Though shared experriences, storytelling and the discussions surrounding the intersection of power, we will navigate the challenges facing healthcare nationally and internationally--as of course--challenge the status quo. The show's core belief remains unwavering: that compassion is the through understanding diverse narratives and perspectives is KEY.
Amie will continue to explore hot-button issues like mental health, social justice, women's health, and the daily challenges within the nursing profession. The Gritty Nurse is more than just a podcast—it's a community where nurses and healthcare workers can feel heard, empowered, and recognized as the community leaders they truly are.
Change is HERE.
Episodes
The newest 20 of 100 episodes
- The True Cost of Care: Storytelling, Profit Motives, and Front-Line Advocacy with Nurse & Best Selling Author Theresa Brown · 52 min · Season 7 Episode 33What does modern healthcare actually cost when we look past balance sheets and measure it in human lives, moral injury, and front-line burnout? In this episode, New York Times…
- Free Labour: The Real Cost of Becoming a Nurse · 30 min · Season 7 Episode 32Nursing students in Canada and the U.S. can rack up 800–1,400+ mandatory clinical hours before they graduate — and not one of them is paid. In this episode, The Gritty Nurse Amie…
- Good Grief & How Healthcare Teaches Us To Bury It · 38 min · Season 7 Episode 31This week, grief was impossible to avoid — Hayden Panettiere, Dolly Parton, Tim Curry, and Peter Cullen all left us within days of each other, and the collective mourning was…
- Silence Isn't Safety, It's Strategy: Inside St. Joe's Fight Against Workplace Violence · 49 min · Season 7 Episode 30Would your hospital admit that staff get assaulted on the job — in public, with real numbers? St. Joseph's Healthcare Hamilton just did. And it's exposing a crisis most hospitals…
- A Battle Cry for Change: Postpartum Psychosis, Systemic Failure, and the Case of Lindsay Clancy · 24 min · Season 7 Episode 29In this new episode on The Gritty Nurse Podcast with Amie Archibald-Varley, we examine the case of Lindsay Clancy through the lens of postpartum psychosis and the catastrophic…
- Why Thousands of Nurses Are Walking Out Across North America? (And Who's Replacing Them) · 1 h 0 min · Season 7 Episode 28Frontline pressures have reached a boiling point. In this swapcast episode, nurses Erica and Amie tackle the wave of nursing strikes across Massachusetts (MNA) and British…
- The Handover: What a 40-Year Gap of Experience Can Teach the Nursing Profession · 42 min · Season 7 Episode 27How do we reclaim the narrative of modern nursing across generations? In this episode of The Gritty Nurse Podcast, host Amie Archibald-Varley sits down with extraordinary nurses…
- 7 Years Ago, I Hid Under My Desk--And Seven Years Later, Almost to The Day... She Was Walked Out. · 17 min · Season 7 Episode 26Content note: this episode discusses workplace violence, suicidal ideation and psychological harm in a clinical/workplace setting. This week, almost seven years to the day since…
- Follow The Legislation, Fix The Insurance! Nurse Psychotherapy Supports Mental Health · 32 min · Season 7 Episode 25With a growing mental health crisis and a system bogged down by waitlists and rigid silos, a powerful paradigm shift is happening across Canada: the rise of nurse-led…
- From KOBO to Digital Health: Disrupting the Status Quo In Healthcare with Mike Serbinis · 46 min · Season 7 Episode 24How do we move from a healthcare system that only reacts to illness, to one that actively empowers patients? In this episode of The Gritty Nurse Podcast, host Amie…
- From the ICU to the Page: Nurse Author Tilda Shalof on Why Nurses Must Tell Their Stories · 37 min · Season 7What happens when a nurse picks up a pen and refuses to stay quiet? She becomes Tilda Shalof — ICU nurse, bestselling author, patient advocate, and one of Canada's most powerful…
- What Nurses Don't Know About the Law Could Cost Them Everything w/ Dr. Cambria Nwsou DNP, RN, LNC · 49 min · Season 7 Episode 22Do you actually know your rights as a nurse? What does it take to go from the operating room to the courtroom — and why should every nurse care? In this episode of The Gritty…
- Let's Talk About Birth, Disparities, and Shifting the System: With Mama Nurse Tina! · 52 min · Season 7 Episode 21Women's health needs a ton of work, and it is a hill we are willing to die on. In this powerful episode of The Gritty Nurse Podcast, host Amie Archibald-Varley sits down with…
- Exposing The Barriers: Why Are Nurse Practitioners Not Practicing To Their Full Scope in Canada? Discussions with CEO of NPAO Dr. Michelle Acorn · 42 min · Season 7 Episode 20In this urgent episode, host Amie Archibald-Varley sits down with Dr. Michelle Acorn, CEO of the Nurse Practitioners' Association of Ontario (NPAO), to rip the band-aid off a…
- The Obedient Nurse: How the "Good Nurse" Myth Quietly Paves the Way for Authoritarianism— and learning Hope Is a Discipline · 1 h 9 min · Season 7 Episode 19What does Florence Nightingale have to do with authoritarianism? More than nursing wants to admit. In this episode of The Gritty Nurse Podcast, host Amie Archibald-Varley and…
- Nursing Needs A Defibrillation: We Are The Shift, We Are The CHANGE with Dr. Danielle McCamey & Gloria Barrera · 49 min · Season 7 Episode 18The healthcare system is flatlining, and it's time for a professional resuscitation. This Nursing Week, join Dr. Danielle McCamey and Gloria E. Barrera for a heavy-hitting…
- Taking Care: The Untold Story of The History of Nursing with Sarah DiGregorio · 57 min · Season 7 Episode 17This Gritty Nurse episode is my special kick-off to the National Nursing Week 2026, celebrated May 6–12 in the United States and celebrated May 11-16 in Canada. Nursing week…
- Crisis as a Catalyst: How Compassion, Meditation and Psychedelics Was the Path To Healing with ED Physician Dr. William Berk · 43 min · Season 7 Episode 16In this episode on The Gritty Nurse, host Amie Archibald-Varley sits down with Dr. William Berk as he shares his transformative journey from a traditional emergency medicine…
- Perimenopause, Pleasure Principles and Purpose: Menopause On MY Terms with Shirley Weir · 41 min · Season 7 Episode 15"Normal is a setting on your dryer—not a standard for your health." In this episode of The Gritty Nurse, we're joined by Shirley Weir, the "Vagina Health Evangelist" and founder…
- The Power of The Pivot: Rediscovering Your Love For Nursing In Non-Traditional Nursing Careers · 36 min · Season 7 Episode 14Nursing is not a destination; it is a foundation. For too long, we have been told that leaving the bedside is 'leaving nursing,' but the truth is the exact opposite. By stepping…
