Biography
Following a lengthy nursing career in acute and community care in small communities in B.C., the Yukon, and the Western Artic, I am presently an assistant professor at Trinity Western University in the nursing program. The areas of my involvement are coordinator/lecturer in the 4th year course "Care of the patient with complex illness", clinical supervisor for Nursingg. 465 Nursing care of adults in the community, clinical supervisor for Nursing 362 Nursing Care of Families, clinical supervisor for the preceptorship practicum, and coordinator/facilitator of the Transcultural Nursing Course that has an international clinical component in Zambia. My research involvement at this time is in innovative clinical placement research considering the view point of agencies who host nursing students. I am also working on establishing an interdisciplinary partnership with the TUW School of Education that would promote education and nursing students working collaboratively on a pilot project that joins education and health care personnel in promoting the health of school children.
Education
- B.Sc., Nursing (UBC)
- MSN (UBC)College of Registered Nurses of BC
- Accepted student for PhD in Nursing at University of Alberta Fall 2010
Areas of Expertise
Transcultural nursing education, adult medical/surgical nursing for complex illness and critical care nursing; maternal/child health, and camp health.
Scholarship Interests & Involvements
Transcultural Learning
It is my passion to introduce students to culture care personally and professionally through an international clinical immersion experience. This experiential learning opportunity allows the students to briefly encounter culture within a developing country and encourages them to recognize how culture impacts perception within health care. For the past five years I have participated in the coordination and implementation of a transcultural learning experience in Guatemala and Zambia where students experience how their own culture interacts with the culture of a developing country while investigating health care beliefs and practices. This provides a transformational learning experience that impacts the student’s worldview and potentially their practice within the Canadian health care system.
Camp Nursing
Over the past several years I have been involved with camp nursing issues and have been a presenter at the annual B. C. Camping Association Conference. I was involved with coordinating and implementing the First Western Canada Camp Nurse Conference in 2003. It is my goal to be involved with developing a camp nurse course at TWU that would enhance the preparedness of nurses who provide health care to children in summer camps.
Publications
Reimer-Kirkham,S., Van Hofwegen, L. & Pankratz, D. ( 2009) Keeping the Vision: Sustaining Social Consciousness with Nursing Students Following International Learning Experiences. International Journal of Nursing Education Scholarship. Vol. 6 (1) p. 1-16.
In this publication, the data collected using a PAR (Partcipatory Action Research ) the authors sought to discover the impact of an international learning experience on the student's personal creation and retention of social consciousness upon returning to their own culture and practice of nursing.
Bringing It Home: Determining educational strategies that translate learning of cultural influence on health care from international clinical experience to North American health care settings.
(Masters Major Paper: D. Pankratz).
Through a literature review of cultural concepts in health care and the outcomes of a variety of cultural immersion experiences by nursing students, this study is designed to yield a comprehensive look at what learning tasks or opportunities were used in the immersion setting and how these impacted learning translation by the students personally and professionally in the north American health care settings.
Memberships & Affiliations
- College of Registered Nurses of B.C.
- Sigma Theta Tau Honor Society of Nursing
- More than a Roof Society
- Founding member of Center for Spiritual Formation in Higher Education
- Canadian Association of International Nursing
- Society for the Arts in Health Care
Awards & Honours
- Provost Doctoral Entrance Award for Academic and Scholarly achievement, University of Alberta, 2009
- UBC Graduate Fellowship Award, 2002
- UBC Scholarship, 1997
- Hamber Scholarship in Nursing, 1997
- Helen Badenoch Scholarship 1997