Research Interns 2006

Esther Aneke
Nurse Educator, BSN Program, Douglas College, BC
e_aneke@douglas.bc.ca

Ms. Aneke has held nursing posts in Nigeria and the Vancouver area, and is also a practicing midwife. Esther is a co-principal in a proposed study on childbirth-related post traumatic stress.  She has interests in women’s health and how their health impacts families.  Esther expects the internship program to enhance her knowledge of multiple intervention research and to strengthen her penmanship in grant application and publication in scholarly journals.  Ultimately, this would contribute to building research capacity at Douglas College.  She is a member of the BC College of Midwives; Perinatal Nurses of BC; and Sigma Theta Tau International, UBC.

Cheryl Armistead
Faculty Lecturer, School of Nursing, McGill University, Montreal
cheryl.armistead@mcgill.ca

Ms. Armistead completed her MScN at the University of Ottawa in 2001. Cheryl’s professional goals are to develop expertise in multi-level population health promotion interventions. Her hope is that the internship will help her prepare for Doctoral studies in Population Health. Cheryl has been a faculty lecturer at McGill University since August 2003 where she teaches Primary Health Care and Community Health Nursing.  She is a member of the OIIQ, CHNAC, CPHA and Sigma Theta Tau. Cheryl’s commitment to family, immigrant and community health is manifested in her role as a member of the Counseil d’Administration of Baobab, a Montreal community organization dedicated to supporting immigrant families in their transition to life in Canada.

Antonia Arnaert
Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, McGill University, Montreal
Guest Professor, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium, Centre for Health Services Research and Nursing
antonia.arnaert@mcgill.ca

Dr. Arnaert has been adjunct nursing director; coordinator for elderly care; and coordinator, Division of Elderly and Child Care, Belgium.  Her research interests are in the area of e-health technologies, such as videophone, to deliver integrated holistic care and support to community-dwelling elderly people.  She recently joined the St. Mary’s Hospital Centre, Montreal, Oncology and Palliative Care Team as a nurse researcher.  Antonia expects the internship to help her become a well-established and competitive academic researcher and expert in her area of interest.

Zoe Dams
Senior Faculty Member, Malaspina University-College, BC
dams@mala.bc.ca

Ms. Dams is involved in faculty development and the scholarship of teaching at Malaspina.  She is a member of the Full Faculty and Scholarship committees at Malaspina, and is active in the Collaboration for Academic Education in Nursing (CAEN) provincial committee.  Among Zoe’s research interests are:  quality of working life; continuing education for nurses; promoting inquiry based practice; complementary therapies in oncology, interpretive inquiry and relational ethics; and cooperative inquiry and spirituality in healing.  She is looking to the internship as an opportunity to study, reflect and conduct research that will enhance her teaching abilities and her contribution to the nursing profession.

Opal Francis-Ruddock
Departmental Sister, Victoria Jubilee Hospital, Kingston, Jamaica
opal4f@yahoo.com

Ms. Francis-Ruddock manages staff development and supervises the nursing service of the Operating Theatre and Special Care Nursery at Victoria Jubilee Hospital.  She is a registered nurse midwife whose nursing background includes work with sick and/or premature neonates; care of patients in antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal periods; and hospital supervision.  Opal hopes to complete a PhD in Health Service Administration.  She will use the skills developed through the internship to influence policy decisions and service delivery, thereby improving outcomes.

Susan Froude
Nursing Instructor, Western Regional School of Nursing, Newfoundland
susan.froude@nf.sympatico.ca

Ms. Froude Masters program focused on a continuing education program for nurses caring for parents following a pregnancy loss.  She worked in Northern Labrador as both a regional nurse and a public health nurse for eight years in outpost nursing, public health nursing and obstetrics, and then as regional director for Public Health for the Grenfell Region.  She is presently involved with planning the symposium with the Canadian Schools of Nursing (CASN) Task Force in community health nursing this spring and the Community Health Nurses Association of Canada 2007 conference.  Sue’s research interests are in the role of a community health nurse focusing on Inuit communities and maternal child health.  She hopes to receive mentoring, foster her research interests and skills, and publish papers through this internship.

Patti Hansen-Ketchum
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing, St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia
phketchu@stfx.ca

Ms. Hansen-Ketchum is a PhD student at the University of Alberta and is currently exploring photographic protocol as a means of acquiring data useful to participants in identifying environmental risks, building visual narratives and tracking changes.  Patti is also part of a SSHRC funded research cluster team that brings together academic and non-academic research and practitioner expertise in health services, community, and environmental health to identify socially and environmentally relevant research questions.  Her career goals include building a program of research to address the linkages between the environment and human health and subsequently promote/protect the long term health of individuals, families and communities.

Denise Hawthorne
Faculty Member, BSN Program, Douglas College, BC
hawthord@douglas.bc.ca

Ms. Hawthorne’s research interests are in perinatal and newborn health, and health promotion. Denise is developing a program of research with an interdisciplinary team to investigate the relationship between women's experience of childbirth and posttraumatic stress disorder. Her goals are to strengthen the grant application for the initial study, develop strategies for effective knowledge transfer, and co-author several publications in relation to her research. She is a member of Xi Eta, Sigma Theta Tau International and the Perinatal Nurses Group of BC.

Cerese Hepburn-Brown
Lecturer, School of Nursing, University of the West Indies
cereseh@yahoo.com

Ms. Hepburn-Brown is a Family Nurse Practitioner and Midwife who has worked in primary health care for over 12 years.  She plans to pursue a PhD in Nursing, learn how to write fundable research proposals, and publish research papers in scholarly journals.  Cerese expects the internship to help her gain an understanding of the theory and application of the multiple interventions framework and provide her with knowledge about systematic literature reviews.  She is a member of the team investigating “The role of carica papaya in wound healing”.  She is co-Chair of the School of Nursing Midwifery Research Conference Committee.

Cindy Hunt
Associate Dean, Nursing, School of Health Sciences, Humber Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning, Toronto
cindy.hunt@humber.ca

Dr. Hunt’s nursing background includes stints as a community outpost nurse in Sioux Lookout, ON; critical care staff/charge nurse in London, UK; and various nursing assignments in Toronto.  Cindy was a research associate with the Community Health Research Unit (CHRU), University of Ottawa, where she coordinated the evaluation component of the multi-site Best Practice Clinical Guidelines Dissemination Project - RNAO.  She is interested in child/family health with respect to the environment.  During the internship, Cindy expects to increase her knowledge of the multiple intervention framework; develop strategic networks for collaborative community health research; complete two scholarly papers; and write a grant proposal.

Truc Huynh
Community Nurse and Nurse, Emergency and Intensive Neonatal Units, Montreal
truc44@msn.com

Ms. Huynh was a clinical instructor at the School of Nursing, McGill University.  Truc’s interest is the application of the ecological model in the evaluation of health promotion programs intended for the disadvantaged immigrant population.  She expects to develop critical research skills essential to the design and evaluation of multiple intervention programs.  Truc intends to pursue doctoral studies in the fall of 2006.

Anne Kearney
Coordinator & Faculty, Office of Research, Centre for Nursing Studies, St. John’s, Newfoundland
annekearney@nl.rogers.com

Dr. Kearney completed her PhD in 2004 at Memorial University with a specialization in community health.  In her position at the Centre for Nursing Studies, she is responsible for creating research capacity among faculty members and nurses employed by Eastern Health.  Her area of teaching and research expertise is in community health.  She is site coordinator of the Collaborative BN curriculum evaluation and teaches a community health course engaging students in a needs assessment and program development process.  Anne has been active in breast cancer and HIV/AIDS community work, from the grassroots to international level, and has led international development work in Nicaragua and Malawi.  An article related to her doctoral dissertation will be published in Qualitative Health Research this summer.

Karen Kelly
Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing; Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences; Adjunct Associate Professor, Division of Emergency Medicine - University of Alberta
Adjunct Associate Professor, Community Health Program, UNBC
Affiliate Associate Professor, Department of Health Care and Epidemiology, UBC
karen.kelly@ualberta.ca

Dr. Kelly’s nursing background includes expertise in acute care and community health nursing in rural and urban settings.  She has been involved in research in areas of waiting lists for major joint replacement surgery; interventions in obstetrical care for low risk patients; sub acute rehabilitation following orthopedic procedures; treatment variation in emergency; sport and recreational related injuries.  She has conducted a number of systematic reviews for the Cochrane Collaboration.  Dr. Kelly is currently exploring issues around accessing mental health services for youth in rural BC and determining the impact of limited mental health services on mental health outcomes (i.e. suicide). 

Margaret Ann Kennedy
Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia
makenned@stfx.ca

Dr. Kennedy completed her PhD in 2005 at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, Australia.  Her doctoral research examined the political and cultural implications of using electronic classification systems to represent nursing.  She served as a member of the Clinical Terminology Integration Committee with Canada Health Infoway, supporting the development of the pan-Canadian EHR.  Margie’s interests include nursing informatics and the capacity of technology to improve health outcomes, particularly among marginalized populations.  She is a member of the College of Registered Nurses of Nova Scotia, Nurses’ Board of South Australia, Massachusetts State Board of Nurses, Canadian Nursing Informatics Association, Nova Scotia Nursing Informatics Association, and the Public Health Research and Knowledge Translation Network.

Andréa Laizner
Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, McGill University
Associate Professor, Faculty of Nursing, Université de Montréal
Nursing Research Consultant, McGill University Health Centre (MUHC), Division of Nursing Research
andrea.laizner@muhc.mcgill.ca

Dr. Laizner’s area of interest is healthy development of child-rearing families dealing with cancer in a family member.  She has been a VON project nurse; staff nurse in various settings in Montreal; and served as Senior Nursing Officer, Secteur de l’Est, Milice, retiring at the rank of Major.  She expects to strengthen her scholarly writing for publication and grant proposal writing during the internship.  Andréa is a member of the Canadian Pediatric Complementary and Alternative Medicine Network and of the Canadian Interdisciplinary Network for Complementary & Alternative Medicine Research.

Dorothy Laplante
Consultant, First Nations and Inuit Health Branch, Health Canada, Ottawa
dlaplante2250@rogers.com

Ms. Laplante’s recent projects include a literature review of depression screening tools; injury prevention within First Nations communities; and presentations to Cabinet on the role of outpost nurses, National research for the Canadian Aboriginal AIDS Network related to harm reduction, and Corrections Canada Female Inmate System Analysis related to Self Injurious behavior.  Her clinical background includes Nurse practitioner, Golden Lake, ON, along with NP relief in various community health centres in Ottawa.  She also provides relief as an expanded role nurse in various outpost nursing stations within First Nations fly in communities in Ontario.  Dorothy’s career goals focus on the improvement of the provision of health care for First Nations and Inuit populations in rural and remote communities.  She expects the internship to provide her with increased knowledge/experience in research and writing for publication. 

Candace Lind
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing, University of Calgary
cylind@ucalgary.ca

Dr. Lind completed her doctoral studies in Nursing at the University of Calgary in 2005.  Her dissertation entitled “The Power of Adolescent Voices: Interpretations of Adolescent Participation as Co-Researchers in Mental Health Promotion” arose from a research design using hermeneutically-inspired participatory action research and appreciative inquiry.  Candace’s goal is to develop a program of research in community-based adolescent mental health promotion, including research that informs nursing practice and policy development and addresses the ways in which adolescents are conceptualized in society.  She is a member of the College & Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta, the Alberta Public Health Association, the Canadian Public Health Association and the Community Health Nurses of Alberta.

Marilyn Macdonald
Assistant Professor, School of Nursing, Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia
Honorary Research Associate, University of New Brunswick
marilyn.macdonald@dal.ca

Dr. Macdonald’s research interests include the origins of difficulty in nurse patient encounters, specifically the factors in the context of care that contribute to the construction of difficulty; and patient safety.  She seeks to establish a program of clinical research that is fundable and sustainable.  Marilyn expects the internship to provide her with:  essential, competitive grantsmanship skills; knowledge of multiple intervention program design; knowledge of innovative approaches to enhance research uptake; and an opportunity to widen her network of research colleagues. 

Patricia McCarthy
Clinical Nurse Specialist/Acute Care Nurse Practitioner, Pediatric Oncology, Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, Ottawa
mccarthy_p@cheo.on.ca

Ms. McCarthy recently completed a Certificate in Ministry at St. Francis Xavier University, NS.  She has participated in an internationally focused qualitative study examining pain management issues among pediatric oncology clinicians in Morocco.  She collaborated with Dr. Betty Davis of UCSF on research examining fatigue in children with cancer.  Patricia is a member of the new CHEO nursing research council and recently started an oncology nursing and allied health research journal club within the CHEO Oncology Program.  She aims to build critical skills and wants to participate in future nurse led research projects at CHEO.  She is confident that the learning and networking throughout the internship will strengthen her ability to participate on national oncology nursing research projects and forums.

Pauline Paul
Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Academic Planning and Programs), Faculty of Nursing; Adjunct Professor, Centre for Health Promotion Studies - University of Alberta
pauline.paul@ualberta.ca

Dr. Paul has had an expansive career as a staff nurse, nursing instructor, principal investigator, and editor.  She is also a regular guest on Société Radio Canada presenting issues related to nursing and health care in Alberta, which airs nationally and provincially.  Pauline’s research interests have been in the area of nursing history, particularly institutional history and education, and more recently in the area of curriculum evaluation and undergraduate education.  She aspires to make a significant contribution in her new area of interest in policy and leadership.  She has received professional and academic honors including the University of Alberta Dissertation Fellowship, the Canadian Nurses Foundation Doctoral Fellowship, and the Alberta Foundation for Nursing Research Doctoral Student Research Grant.

Trudy Read

Public Health Nurse, Western Health, Newfoundland
Policy, Planning & Research Analyst, Western Regional Integrated Health Authority, Newfoundland
trudyread@hcsw.nf.ca

Ms. Read completed her Master of Nursing degree at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, NB, in 2003. Her thesis was a grounded theory study entitled: A process of relinquishing: Daughters caring for dying, elderly parents. Her interests include informal caregiving; the impact of out-migration of Newfoundlanders on the family and health systems; and population health including well-being of individuals, families, communities and health care providers.  Trudy recently completed a proposal seeking Primary Health Care project funding for her community.  She is particularly interested in demonstrating to decision-makers that health research can improve policy, practice, and the quality of health care services. Trudy anticipates the internship will assist her in the development of an evidence-based population health model to deliver directly to managers and staff for utilization in the newly integrated regional health authority.

Cheryl Reid-Haughian
Director, Professional Practice, ParaMed Home Health Care, Ottawa
creidhaughian@extendicare.com

Ms. Reid-Haughian’s Master’s degree focused on knowledge transfer and evidence based practice from the perspective of practice, education and research in community health care, specifically home health care.  Her career goals include transforming both practice and practice environments through the development of innovative strategies, structures, cultures and competencies in home health care.  Her research interests include exploration of processes that facilitate research uptake in the community to benefit patients and nurses.  Cheryl is active in many voluntary organizations such as RNAO-CHNIG, NLN, ONIG and NRIG and is on the executive of the Professional Practice Network of Ontario.  She currently is part of the MOHLTC-HOBIC Learning and Development Committee focusing on integration of outcome based care across sectors.  Her research involvement has included a variety of roles from senior nursing advisor, advisory panel and co-investigator.

Judith Spiers
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta
jude.spiers@ualberta.ca

Dr. Spiers received her PhD in Nursing from the University of California, San Francisco.  Her career has included experience as a staff nurse, nurse educator, teaching and research assistant, and editor. Her primary research interests include living with chronic and hidden illness, health professional-patient interaction/communication, and breaking bad news in the clinical setting.  Judith’s current research is focused on teenagers' experiences of living with diabetes, the perceptions of their parents and health care providers and the construction of denial within the specific health care consultation. She is also involved in exploring the experience of families with children living with obesity as they go through health and lifestyle-related programs.  She has been the recipient of many grants, awards and honors including the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research Independent Investigator Establishment Award, two UCSF Regents Fellowships, the UCSF Distinguished Dissertation Award, and the U of A Izaak Walton Killam Post Doctoral Fellowship.

Mary Thompson
Technical Consultant, Canadian Nurses Association - Strengthening National Nurses Association Project
ma.thompson@sympatico.ca

Ms. Thompson has worked on projects in Ecuador, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala.  Her research interests focus on the impact of health reform policy on nursing policy/practice in Latin America.  Mary’s clinical background includes stints as staff nurse in a camp for Salvadoran refugees; and community nursing with displaced indigenous populations in northeastern Guatemala.  She expects to continue working in international development particularly in the areas of project monitoring and evaluation; community health research; and training of health personnel using a dialogue education approach.

Audrey Walsh
Assistant Professor, St. Francis Xavier/Cape Breton University Joint Nursing Program
audrey_walsh@capebretonu.ca

Ms. Walsh will be starting her PhD in Nursing at Dalhousie University in fall, 2006.  She has worked and studied in a variety of nursing fields which include out post nursing, and nurse midwifery.  Her most extensive nursing practice has been in the area of Public Health.  Audrey is part of a local Population Health Partnership for Practice, Education and Research; a partnership between the Joint St. FX/CBU Nursing program and regional Public Health Services.  Presently, she is partnering to develop a standardized well child assessment tool for public health nurses in this area.  Her research interests include breastfeeding, and healthy early childhood development. She is a member of the Canadian Public Health Association, and the Public Health Association of Nova Scotia.

Sharon Yanicki
Part-time Instructor, School of Health Sciences, University of Lethbridge, Alberta
sharon.yanicki@shaw.ca

Ms. Yanicki is completing doctoral studies at the Faculty of Nursing, University of Alberta.  She is currently contracted as the Executive Director of the Alberta Public Health Association.  Sharon’s clinical background includes many years of experience as a community health nurse throughout Alberta including relief nursing on reserve and more than 11 years as a manager of public health services.  Her research interests focus on social inclusion for low income residents participating in a community development project using multiple interventions to address child poverty.  Sharon plans to continue teaching in the fields of public health and nursing and to develop a research program focused on the social determinants of health and poverty.