CNF COVID-19 Fund Award

I have worked in healthcare for over two decades and have progressively advanced in formal leadership roles with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA), from the front-lines to executive leadership. I have led many multidisciplinary teams and more recently, my leadership has been instrumental in managing multiple transformational initiatives occurring in the health system both at the regional and provincial levels. As WRHA Chief Health Operations Officer, I am responsible for the leadership and oversight of operations for Continuing Care (including long term care facilities and seniors care) and Community Health Services (including Home Care, Population Public Health, Mental Health & Addictions, and Primary Health care delivered across the community access centres).

As a Registered Nurse, I am humbled by the experience that the nursing profession has opened up for me and the versality of the nursing role in modern day health care. I firmly believe nursing leadership at the frontlines is paramount in our health care system as continued pressures build to sustain health services in a cost-efficient manner, while at the same time, uncompromising the quality of patient/ client care. My PhD research will explore the self-perceived leadership behaviors at the front-lines, within an intersectional frame and to use that same lens to emancipate nurses and other health professions by identifying and removing barriers to their own leadership development. The research findings will inform equity, diversity and inclusion mandates that all organizations across industries must urgently tackle in their own corporate cultures.

I continue to be involved in numerous research committees that have been awarded significant funding as a senior decision maker in the health system. My objective in pursuing my PhD in Nursing is to model the way for nurses, specifically at the front-lines – who have desire to pursue graduate studies in nursing while balancing the demands of work and family responsibilities.

Thank you to CNF for this scholarship award and supporting nurses in achieving higher levels of academic excellence – a necessary goal to realize future success of our profession.