Dr. Alice Girard Award

A decade of experience as a Nurse Clinician and trainer on the topic of motivation and health behaviour change has helped me gain a profound appreciation of patients’ struggles in smoking cessation and increasing physical activity despite the extra demands imposed on them by their chronic illnesses. The CNF Dr. Alice Girard Award supports my interests as a future Nurse Clinician Scientist to design and evaluate nursing interventions aimed at improving health behaviours among patients living with chronic illnesses.

Nursing is a humanistic, caring and genuine profession that holds deep regard for human connections. My unwavering belief is that interventions designed from this perspective have a greater potential to make positive differences in health. Furthermore, scientific evaluation of the integrity and active ingredients of nursing interventions is essential to maximize their positive impacts in patients, families, and communities. Doctoral training at the Faculty of Nursing Sciences of the University of Montreal will help me fulfill my vision to improve the flow of nursing research to the bedside through the translation of new nursing knowledge into practice.

Specifically, I expect that patients, families, and communities at large will benefit from the Virtual Nursing intervention designed and evaluated in my doctoral degree because it combines state-of-the-science knowledge in human motivation with Internet-based technologies in communication. Receiving this Fellowship helps me dedicate my full time in doctoral studies, which in turn improves my ability to make significant contributions to health care communities and to the general public in Canada and worldwide.