Prior to taking on a full-time faculty lecturer position at the Ingram School of Nursing (ISoN), Catherine-Anne devoted many years to the 平特五不中 Health Centre (MUHC) neuroscience mission, most notably in her role as a clinical nurse specialist in the brain tumour program.
Why did you choose to become a nurse?
When I was a child, I consistently told my parents that I would 鈥渘ever become a nurse like my mother鈥�. After high school, I left home and lived in Cuenca, Ecuador for a year. In addition to attending school, I volunteered in a humanitarian hospital weekly promoting maternal-child activities in a low-income neighborhood. To the great surprise of my parents, I came home adamant that nursing was my professional path.
The experience opened my eyes to health inequities. I saw first-hand how nursing provided the bulk of person-centered care and how nursing leadership & expertise influence community health outcomes. My conviction in the value of accessible healthcare and the unique contribution of nurses towards health has sustained my practice since those formative years. I did my entry-to-practice education at 平特五不中 and was the first student to complete their final clinical consolidation abroad in Venezuela, an opportunity now known as the Ambassador Program.
What is your area of expertise or specialization and why?
As I tell my students, life is often a winding road with unexpected turns. I started my nursing career in Neurosciences and found a deep passion for walking alongside patients with cancerous brain tumours and their families in their experience of uncertainty, loss, and end-of-life. This led to well over a decade working at the Neuro in various roles, most recently with an exceptional interdisciplinary team as the Clinical Nurse Specialist (CNS) in the MUHC Neuro-Oncology program.
In between positions at the Neuro, I sought to develop knowledge and skills in my other passions of health promotion and global health. In 2004-2005, I worked in Western Nepal during the civil war as a nursing adviser in a regional hospital and as a community health nurse with internally displaced children. In 2008, I completed my Masters at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health in Health Promotion and Global Health. My graduate studies deepened my commitment to health equity and provided me with skills and knowledge to be more effective in program development, communication, and systems thinking.
What motivated you to join the faculty at the Ingram School of Nursing?
Various changes in health care prompted me to reflect on how I wanted to contribute to the field of nursing going forward. I felt accomplished in my CNS role, but hoped to find a way to influence the field of nursing more broadly and to better incorporate my passion for health promotion and global health into my career. I realized that joining the ISoN as an educator would help me meet these objectives, so I joined the team and I haven鈥檛 looked back!
What do you love the most about your job?
I love the opportunity to continuously learn with students and colleagues. I have also found that being in education allows for great creativity and innovation, which is something that inspires me.
What is something you want people to know about nursing in general?
Nursing is one of the most versatile professions possible. We care for people in their most intimate moments; birth, death, times of hope and fear. We use our expertise and clinical reasoning skills to create conditions for healing and to enable individuals & communities to increase control over their health. We advocate for positive change based on ethical principles and social justice values. We manage teams, programs, and lead health care innovations. In sum, nurses are key for achieving health!