October 27th, 2009
Filed under: Nursing
University of Manitoba nursing professor Roberta Woodgate is sharing her latest research findings in an innovative way – YouTube videos.
The videos were created as part of Woodgate’s study on health promotion with teens, Youth speaking for themselves about health within their own life-situations: An ethnographic study of youth’s perspectives of health and their own health interests. The videos are part of the knowledge translation (KT) activities for the study, which is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
The video Summer Daze demonstrates the social, mental and spiritual benefits of physical activity and how it determines overall health. The second video, What if?, is about the availability of healthy options in the community and the ongoing problem of easy access to junk food.
The two videos provide a general snapshot of her findings. Overall, the study offered insight into how youth understand different determinants of health, and their impact on their own health and the health of others. This study also revealed youth are well aware of health messages that emphasize healthy eating and physical activity.
In her future research work with children and youth, Woodgate plans to continue to involve them in KT activities, as their involvement will help ensure research findings are translated in a meaningful way.
Her clinical research interests include expertise in all areas of child and youth health including pediatric chronic and life-threatening illness, childhood disability, and health promotion. The overall objective of her research programs is to better understand and improve the quality of health care involving children and their families.
Woodgate is a leading Canadian researcher who holds several national grants and a long list of peer- reviewed publications. Her work has earned major awards. In 2008, Prime Minister Stephen Harper named Woodgate a Canadian “Nurse to Know.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgqF167zfRU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ksZeoNQkGA
Posted in: Nursing
October 13th, 2009
Filed under: Nursing
Six students and two faculty members from Sichuan University participated in University of Manitoba Faculty of Nursing classes and learned about the Canadian health care system as part of an exchange program the schools established in 2007.
When not on campus, the nursing students toured city health facilities, including hospitals and community clinics, met the lieutenant-governor, visited Siloam Mission, and shopped, of course. The visit began on September 28 and the students flew home on October 10.
“The overall objective of this relationship is to develop a great cultural competence - a respect for cultural differences. We’re not jut doing it for fun; we’re doing it to cultivate, in our students and theirs, a greater appreciation of each other,”said Ruth Dean, the program coordinator.
“Even if our students don’t practice anywhere but Winnipeg, Manitoba, they are going to be exposed to a multicultural clientele; the idea is they learn an appreciation for that and the different cultural ways that go with it.”
The relationship with the Sichuan University began in the 90s when the U of M received grants to help what was then known as Western China School of Nursing to develop a sustainable program. In 2001 the school was mature enough to be on its own and now the two schools keep the relationship alive with student exchanges.
U of M faculty and students last went to China in 2008 and will go again in April 2010.
The Faculty of Nursing is also currently courting Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya, in hopes of developing another student exchange program.
Posted in: Nursing
June 23rd, 2009
Filed under: Nursing
Jay Bodner is a 3rd year nursing student at the Faculty of Nursing, University of Manitoba with an unique role in his “other” life! In May, 2009 the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra (WSO) launched the First Indigenous Festival, a celebration of Indigenous cultures from around the world. This 4 day event culminated in an innovative concert at the Burton Cummings Theatre which featured the WSO playing with the Juno award winning Aboriginal rock band, Eagle and Hawk. Nursing students were in the audience cheering on their fellow student, Jay Bodner, the lead singer and as he refers to himself, the “grandpa” of his nursing student cohort!
Jay Bodner first joined Eagle and Hawk when band leader Vince Fontaine approached him at a musicians’ hockey league event. The band was looking for a lead singer to accompany them on a European tour. That was 11 years ago and Jay is still singing, playing and composing with the band. Jay describes the cultural composition of Eagle and Hawk as representative of the diversity of the Canadian cultural mosaic. Vince, a proud Ojibwa leads the band which is composed of Marty Chapman an English drummer, Caribbean keyboard player, Italian Irish Mi’kmaq bass player and Jay who describes himself as a Canadian mutt with Lebanese heritage and a little bit of the unkown.
Originally the band’s music was primarily about the Native experience but over the past 3 – 4 years has now blossomed to something larger which Jay describes as the human experience. Over the last 11 years Jay has been submerged in the Aboriginal culture, learned much and developed an affinity to the Aboriginal people. Besides playing for northern communities, the band undertakes mainstream trade shows and festivals. The main message of their music is positive, priding itself on good melody and lyrical content that does not include swearing or negative lyrical content. The live shows aim to be friendly and positive, described by Jay as “an all round feel good rock and roll show”.
Jay has also had a career within health care for at least as many years as he has been a musician. Over the past 17 years, he has worked as a ward clerk and health care aide in the emergency ward of Concordia Hospital. Currently he is on the casual list at Misericordia and Concordia. He describes his experience with his family as “winning the lottery of life”. He credits his mother, who is a nurse as influencing him to enter health care. With the band, he assumed the role of “House Mom”, advising other band members about ailments that occurred on the road. Advice was generally given after a telephone consultation with Nurse Mom! At various points in his life, Jay has found his work in health care to be sustaining particularly after experiencing the death of his brother. Jay found himself often comforting families in the ER as they awaited news of their loved ones. His ability to stay calm with the families has been helpful. His mother’s example and passion for nursing inspired him to enter the Faculty of Nursing and work towards his dream of becoming a university prepared registered nurse.
Balancing studies, family and band responsibilities is challenging, particularly when the other band members depend on you to contribute to the band for their living. Some of the band members have been his best cheerleaders. Last year was the band’s most successful year with Eagle and Hawk winning six awards out of ten nominations at music award shows in Canada, and a ground breaking concert with the WSO. While a long time coming and inherently joyful, it was difficult to meet all the diverse demands placed upon him. Three important children are also in Jay’s life. He tries to be “Dad” to them and spend time with them. Some nights that means opening the nursing text books late at night and trying to stay awake!
The dual worlds of music and nursing while initially seeming far apart do influence each other. As the lead singer Jay has had to learn how to connect to his audience whether it be in a small intimate group or a large audience with a language barrier. Through these experiences, he has had to learn new ways to communicate. This has stood him in good stead in nursing practice where he sees communication issues being key, with patients, families and the health care team. Working with band members has similarities to working with a health care team; everyone has a common goal, performs different jobs and needs to get along. His music life has also taught him to be flexible, a quality that the nurse of the future will need. Rapid changes in society will require nurses to be open to change. Jay’s mother has illustrated flexibility in her nursing career having been a nursing supervisor, ward nurse, and community nurse. His father has taught him staying power and with that Jay is committed to completing his degree. While not sure where he will eventually practice nursing, Jay feels that he will both contribute to nursing with his life experiences and be challenged by his nursing career.
Good luck in the upcoming year!
Posted in: Nursing
February 5th, 2009
Filed under: Nursing
There’s something to be said for an economy of scale.
It’s something that Faculty of Nursing dean Dauna Crooks has come to appreciate since coming to the University of Manitoba in July 2007 after spending most of her career in Ontario.
“There’s a different culture here,” Crooks said. Sure we’re friendly and that’s made it easy for Crooks and her husband to settle into the province.
But the real difference is how plugged in the University of Manitoba is to the province. Crooks said soon after taking up her position, she set up a meeting with Health Minister Theresa Oswald.
“I was thinking I was just going to speak with her alone, because that’s what would happen in Ontario,” Crooks said. “But when I arrived at the meeting the table was full of people. So I met ministers from different divisions, and we were able to talk about what was I thinking, where the Faculty of Nursing was going, and what the ministry saw as priorities and where were they going. The government is our major funder and it was just a wonderful way to start.”
That experience wasn’t unique. She found Manitoba Health, the Assembly of First Nations Chiefs and a long list of other groups involved with community health were equally keen to see what the U of M was doing.
“In Ontario a number of universities and colleges vie for resources and attention. Here’s it’s different,” Crooks said. “It’s not that we’re the only game in town for nursing, we’re not. But you don’t find that same sort of political manoeuvring.
“I think it’s the economy of scale that you find here. Ontario is a messy sort of conglomeration of things, and they don’t all speak to each other.”
Crooks said that collegiality also extends to how the university operates.
“The other thing that is really different here was the fact that deans, myself included, are asked for their opinion and it actually matters. In Ontario it would be the president who speaks for everybody,” Crooks said.
Since she arrived at the U of M, the faculty has revised its masters program.
“It had been a specialty program,” Crooks said. So, if you were interested in cardiology, you would take the cardiology stream. If you were interested in child health, you would take the child health stream and so on. But students and faculty were spread thinly between the diverse streams and often the fields being offered didn’t reflect what students went on to do.
“We looked at where our masters’ students ended up and we found they went on to become educators for us, clinical educators, clinical nurse specialists or they went on to be administrators,” Crooks said. Given that, the faculty has turned to focus on giving students the skills to enter their field of choice or giving them the skills to acquire their specialization in the work place.
The new masters program will be up and running this fall. The next step will be to create a doctoral program.
“We have a whole community of masters prepared nurses that have come out of the U of M for the most part but nowhere for them to go locally.” Developing a doctoral program won’t happen over night. The first step will be to bring in a consultant to pull together faculty and community ideas and give the faculty members a straw dog to react to. Even as it looks toward developing a doctorate degree, Crooks said the faculty will have to look at its undergraduate program.
“We’ll need to ensure that we’re refining our programs so that students are ready by year four of undergraduate to move on to a graduate program, if they so choose.” The faculty is also hoping to develop an after degree program if there is sufficient govern-ment interest.
“It would be a
two-year accelerated degree program,” Crooks said. “If you have a science degree then we would spend the two years socializing the students into the aspects of nursing.” With this cohort in nursing it would lead nicely toward the goal of a nurse physiologist graduate stream.
“So this all fits together, the jigsaw is forming. We almost have the corners, but not quite.”
Crooks has spent most of her life thinking about how that puzzle should go together. She was born in Toronto, but her father worked for Trans Canada Pipelines, so she spent her youth moving from place to place in Central and Western Canada.
“It was just normal,” Crooks said of the multiple moves. The family did settle down in Saskatchewan during her teen years. “What it does is allow you to adjust to new places and to love them very quickly because you’re not going to be there that long and to make friends very quickly and find the best in situations.”
She knew from the start that she was interested in the medical field.
“It was a profession where you would meet people, you would be part of the community and you would meet people’s needs.” A visit to the Faculty of Nursing while she was studying science at the University of Toronto sealed the interest. The experience was everything she might have hoped for.
“The faculty were excellent mentors, and our classes were small so they knew all of us and would join us for lunch, giving us all those experiences that created, for lack of a better word, a fellowship,” Crooks said.
Just by deciding to study nursing in a university setting, she was influencing how her career would go.
“At that point only about three to five per cent of nurses in Canada were actually university educated. So in that sense as a university graduate, you were an outlier.” The other 95 per cent of nurses entering the field were trained by a facility or hospital where they would later be working and their training was tailored to meet the needs of that specific work setting. University trained nurses were given a broader education that included courses in philosophy and history. They were also given placements at multiple agencies in the field.
“We weren’t bound to one agency. We had an idea of how different agencies worked and what they were like, how they treated students, and where you would want to be when you graduated, based on the environment you were working in,” Crooks said. “One of the hot topics in the 2000s has been quality work environments, but we were thinking about that way back.”
Crooks kicked off her career by working with the Victorian Order of Nurses. “During the first six months in that role – in terms of being in the community and entering someone’s home, learning how to do assessments and to make referrals – I learned more than I did in four years of school. So it was good for me. It developed me as an independent thinker.”
She knew quickly that she wanted to continue her education, but she was juggling family responsibilities and career aspirations. So it was a question of being able to fit everything in.
“The other thing is that within my family there were no role models: no one had gone to university on either side. So there was no guidance there to say Dauna you should go back and do this,” Crooks said. But she did go on to get her MScN from the University of Western Ontario in 1983, balancing four jobs and three children under two years old. The PhD from State University of New York at Buffalo would follow in 1997. The masters helped Crooks get a job in the School of Nursing in McMaster University, where she split her time between teaching and working with cancer patients as a clinical nurse specialist, a focus that would encourage her to study breast cancer in older women during her doctorate.
“The experience at McMaster University was great because it gave me the ability to refine my approach to education in a wonderful environment, but it also gave me an opportunity to make an impact clinically.”
Crooks was involved in the graduate and doctoral level curriculum at McMaster University – perfect training for her current goals at the University of Manitoba. But she also moved on to become a researcher in the Hamilton Regional Health Centre and then director, education services, at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto from 2001 to 2003 and then associate chief of nursing: education from 2003 to 2005.
“Sick Kids was an incredible environment that allowed me to develop educational strategies and work with the clinical educators, developing their standards and career paths,” Crooks said.
In 2005 she was appointed as the director of the Trent/Fleming School of Nursing at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Crooks had interviewed for the U of M when she was working for the Hospital for Sick Children, but at the time she didn’t have experience leading a school or faculty. When the opportunity to apply came up again last year, Crooks was ready and willing.
“I knew my background in cancer research matched one of the major thrusts here, so it was a good fit that way. And through talking with people I had a sense of the community and this faculty, and that if there were issues, people were willing to address them,” Crooks said. “It was an easy decision to come here when the job was offered.”
Crooks’s three children – a daughter and twin boys – are grown up now and she has four grandchildren. Her husband Terry, a teacher, is now retired and devoting himself to studying and writing about the U.S. Civil War.
Posted in: Nursing
November 27th, 2008
Filed under: Nursing, Uncategorized
Dr. Heaman (centre) with award.
Two University of Manitoba Faculty of Nursing professors were awarded one of the most esteemed honours in the nursing profession on Wednesday, November 26. Drs. Maureen Heaman and Lesley Degner were in Ottawa to receive the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) Centennial Award, an honour for registered nurses whose personal and professional contributions have made an outstanding and significant impact on the profession.
“These are nurses who represent all regions of this country and all areas of nursing, from educators to administrators to practitioners to researchers to policy leaders,” said CNA president Kaaren Neufeld on the diversity of recipients. “But although they may work in a variety of settings, one thing they have in common is that they have made a difference. Their passion and dedication is truly inspiring.”
Dr. Degner is a distinguished professor in the Faculty of Nursing and a Canadian Health Services Research Foundation/Canadian Institutes of Health Research Chair. She is considered an expert in the psychosocial aspects of cancer care and symptom management, and was recently recognized as one of Canada’s 10 leading cancer researchers with a National Cancer Institute of Canada Diamond Jubilee Award.
Dr. Heaman is an associate professor and associate dean, research, in the Faculty of Nursing. She is director of the Manitoba Centre for Nursing and Health Research (MCNHR ) at the University of Manitoba. MCNHR is a research unit within the Faculty that promotes and supports the conduct, dissemination and uptake of collaborative nursing and health research. Dr. Heaman is also a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Chair in Gender and Health.
Centennial Award recipients are nominated for the lifetime award by their peers in recognition of their contributions to the profession, workplace and health system. Today’s ceremony is part of the CNA’s year-long program marking the organization’s 100th anniversary. To see the list of award recipients and their bios go to www.cna100.ca.
The CNA is a federation of 11 provincial and territorial registered nurses’ associations and colleges representing more than 133,700 Canadian nurses and nurse practitioners.
Posted in: Nursing, Uncategorized
October 28th, 2008
Filed under: Nursing
Faculty of Nursing students offered their first health screening clinic on October 21 at Saul Sair Health Centre at Siloam Mission. For a couple of hours in the afternoon the students were on hand at the downtown Winnipeg institution to take blood pressure and provide health information to the poor and homeless.
“The importance of promoting healthcare through fun and interactive methods helps connect necessary services to those who need it most in a personal way that most people can relate to,” says Kari Enns, dental program coordinator of Saul Sair Health Centre at Siloam Mission. “Having student nurses give their time for an event like this is invaluable to Siloam Mission and provides an effective partnership by providing much-needed care to our homeless and low-income citizens.”
The idea for a student health screening clinic was inspired by a desire to provide second-year nursing students with a hands-on opportunity to reach out to the community with health screening.
“This is a way to set an example to encourage others to participate in communities other than our own, to get involved and to give back to others,” says event coordinator and Faculty of Nursing clinical course leader and instructor Rae Harwood.
Saul Sair Health Centre at Siloam Mission provides holistic healthcare in Winnipeg’s inner city. Patrons include the chronically addicted, the mentally ill, street workers and those who are homeless or in danger of becoming homeless. Services are provided with dignity and without discrimination based on race, gender, religion or identification.
The Faculty of Nursing at the University of Manitoba offers programs in a community that is characterized by a mosaic of cultural groups. This cultural diversity provides excellent opportunities for students from the Faculty of Nursing to develop sensitivities to cultural aspects of health and healthcare.
Posted in: Nursing
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