"Caring with dignity and respect: Exposing the reality"
The Department of Nursing Research at the McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) is organizing the 27th Annual Nurses and Research in Perspective Day at the Montreal General Hospital on November 16, 2007. The theme of the conference: "Caring with dignity and respect: Exposing the reality" addresses the importance of preserving dignity across a variety of patient care contexts.
"Nursing research focuses on gaining a better understanding of patients and their families, and on ways to improve patient care and outcomes," explained Judith Ritchie, Associate Director for Nursing Research at the MUHC. Most staff who provide nursing care would agree that maintaining patient dignity is a core value of their work, however there are few strong studies on how this might be achieved. Each institution therefore implements its own practices.
Dr. Susan McClement, Research Associate in the Palliative Care Research Unit at the University of Manitoba, will give the key-note lecture on "Dying with dignity: a contemporary challenge in end-of-life care". She will be the main invited speaker at the conference and will provide an update about her research on preserving the dignity of cancer patients in the Palliative Care Unit at CancerCare Manitoba. "It is important to establish guidelines so that best practices in terms of patient privacy are systematically applied in all hospitals," Dr. McClement explains.
Dr. McClement's lecture will take place from 1:15 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. Members of the media are welcome to attend and will have the opportunity to speak with her afterwards.
This conference was made possible by a grant to the MUHC, MGH Division, by Pfizer Canada, Inc.
The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) is a comprehensive academic health institution with an international reputation for excellence in clinical programs, research and teaching. The MUHC is a merger of five teaching hospitals affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University--the Montreal Children's, Montreal General, Royal Victoria, and Montreal Neurological Hospitals, as well as the Montreal Chest Institute. Building on the tradition of medical leadership of the founding hospitals, the goal of the MUHC is to provide patient care based on the most advanced knowledge in the health care field, and to contribute to the development of new knowledge. www.muhc.ca
The Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI MUHC) is a world-renowned biomedical and health-care hospital research centre. Located in Montreal, Quebec, the institute is the research arm of the MUHC, a university health center affiliated with the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. The institute supports over 500 researchers, nearly 1000 graduate and post-doctoral students and operates more than 300 laboratories devoted to a broad spectrum of fundamental and clinical research. The Research Institute operates at the forefront of knowledge, innovation and technology and is inextricably linked to the clinical programs of the MUHC, ensuring that patients benefit directly from the latest research-based knowledge. For further details visit: www.muhc.ca/research.