Nursing Research Conference to Focus on Improving Access to Health Care

Nurses who are leaders in practice, education, and research will gather at Vancouver’s St. Paul’s Hospital Feb. 4 to 5 for a two day research conference devoted to improving access to health care and to the social resources required for health. Speakers at “Promoting Health and Social Justice: ACTION Through Practice, Leadership and Research” will include nationally and internationally renowned researchers from nursing, epidemiology, and ethics.

The keynote speaker at 9 a.m. on Feb. 5 is Heather Mass, chief of nursing at Children’s and Women’s Health Centre of British Columbia, who will discuss the various roles nurses can play in advancing primary health care, including the current planning around the role of nurse practitioners.

A panel session at 3:15 p.m. on “Double Jeopardy: Inequities in Resources for Health and Health Care” includes: Dr. Marjorie MacDonald, from UVic’s school of nursing; Dr. Clyde Hertzman, director, Human Early Learning Partnership, UBC; and Bashir Jiwani, an ethicist from Providence Health Care.

Researchers will present papers on Saturday on a variety of topics highly relevant to current provincial and national health care reform initiatives—including partnerships with Aboriginal people and people who are recent immigrants, heart health for women, the management of chronic pain, and interdisciplinary collaboration.

Pre-conference workshops on Feb. 4 include one on developing media literacy skills for political action. Participants include: Dr. Colleen Varcoe, from UVic’s school of nursing, currently conducting action-based research with women who have experienced violence; and Rob Calnan, manager, practice and evaluation, for the Canadian Nurse Practitioner Initiative and a past president of the Canadian Nurses Association.

For more information visit www.xieta.nursing.ubc.ca.

-- 30 --