Aplastic Anemia & Myelosdysplasia Association of Canada Award

I entered nursing school with the dream of working in oncology and hematology as a Registered Nurse. I was fortunate to secure employment in an outpatient oncology clinic upon graduation from a Bachelor of Science in Nursing program.  This setting provided the opportunity to work with experts in oncology who are both competent and compassionate; I was fortunate to find mentors that built my confidence as a novice oncology nurse.

I worked with nursing teams to implement practice changes and create processes and standards of care to promote better patient care and outcomes. One area I found especially intriguing was the need to improve the use of electronic communication and documentation to optimize interprofessional collaboration and minimize overlapping of resources.  My work in this regard was presented at a national conference and this motivated me to pursue further education to become more confident in my abilities in research and scholarship.

I currently work as a graduate academic assistant and teaching assistant while I pursue graduate studies. My current research explores nursing informatics and I will be assessing the competencies of oncology nurses in this area.  I would like to thank the Canadian Nurses Foundation and the Aplastic Anemia & Myelodysplasia Association of Canada for this award.  This award will help pay for tuition and cover costs related to my research.  My goal is to help nurses feel more prepared and confident to work with evolving technologies in practice; this will provide patients with safer care resulting in more optimal outcomes.