Margaret Purden, N. PhD,
Associate Professor, Ingram School of Nursing
Scientific Director, Centre for Nursing Research, Jewish General Hospital
Research Background
Dr. Purden’s research interests have focused on developing and evaluating innovations in Interprofessional Education (IPE). Her funded research as principal investigator involved examining strategies to promote collaborative patient-centered practice on an inpatient medical unit and exploring educational interventions to promote interprofessional practice with family medicine residents and nursing students. She was co-PI on a 1.3 million dollar project entitled The McGill Educational Initiative on Interprofessional Collaboration: Partnerships for Patient and Family-Centred Practice in 2005. She is currently a co- investigator on a CIHR funded Knowledge to Action Operating Grant, Managing Pain in Collaboration in the Intensive Care Unit (MPIC-ICU) (2016- 2018). Her ongoing work with Dr. Susan Law (Associate Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Director, St. Mary`s Research Centre), brings together a team of researchers and educators to develop, implement and evaluate innovative online IPE learning modules to address complex ethical dilemmas in patient-centred care. Dr. Purden's research accomplishments have been recognized by the Jewish General Hospital with a Distinguished Service Award for the Development of an Outstanding Nursing Research Program.
Over the past 10 years, the results from her work have been disseminated at 15 invited lectures and talks, 6 national and 16 international conferences for nursing (CASN), medicine (CAME, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons Simulation Summit) and IPE (All Together Better Health, Collaborating Across Borders). Her published work in this area includes a systematic review of IPE for collaborative patient-centered practice that was conducted for Health Canada and articles in the Journal of Interprofessional Care.
Dr. Purden is currently a member of the Office of Interprofessional Education in the Faculty of Medicine at McGill University. In conjuction with faculty colleagues from Medicine, Physical and Occupational Therapy, Communication Sciences and Disorders and Nursing she established a formal interprofessional education program for all entry to practice students (undergraduate and graduate) in the Faculty of Medicine. With the assistance of 160 academic and clinical faculty the program delivers IPE courses to over 1,800 students annually.
Her graduate students have conducted research on the following topics: Staff perceptions of The quality of interprofessional team communication in the Operating room; Intentional Partnering: A grounded theory on how nurse and physician mangers in formalized partnerships work together to address clinical management issues in a hospital setting; and Facilitators’ Experiences Debriefing an Interprofessional Group of University Healthcare Students following a Simulation Learning Activity. Dr. Purden was named to the Faculty Honour list for Educational Excellence in the Faculty of Medicine and for the past 5 years has been an adjudicator for the award. She is a member of the Canadian Interprofessional Health Collaborative (CHIC), a network of IPE/IPP educators and contributed to the development of accreditation standards and competencies for interprofessional education.
Research Interests
Innovations in interprofessional education, measurement of IPE outcomes in learners, interventions to advance interprofessional practice.