Research opportunities
Point-of-Care research program
Developed in 2009 with the Capital District Health Authority (CDHA), this program provides educational opportunities and infrastructure for health professionals to design, create, and implement their own research, answering questions generated by their own practice and patient care.
The program was created by representatives from Capital Health Research Services and the School of Health Sciences (Dr. Rob Gilbert and Carol Gillis). It was developed to identify essential supports for multidisciplinary point-of-care research and create essential partnerships between health faculty at Dalhousie and CDHA practitioners.
Patient care
Eight people were enrolled in the program, including a pharmacist, a sonographer, a physiotherapist, and a social worker. Jan Gilby (Diagnostic Medical Ultrasound lecturer) is one of the participants.
"It's the staff working directly with patients who have the greatest potential to identify areas that can directly impact patient care," she says. "This program allows those front-line staff to take their ideas and formulate relevant research questions with the hope that we will end up improving health care for our patients."
Mentorship
A component within the program matches participants to faculty members who will mentor them. Suzie Officer, the policy and research administrator for the Faculty of Health Professions, identifies mentors within the faculty who are then matched with participants.
The Point-of-Care program will not only help to improve patients' health outcomes, but also provide the participants with knowledge that they can apply to their everyday work.
Outside the classroom
- Building a new model for health care
-
A new building planned for Dalhousie’s Carleton campus aims to be common ground for students from the Faculties of Dentistry, Medicine and the Health Professions—a place where an aspiring nurse, social worker and dental hygienist could get together for coffee; where a future physician, occupational therapist and pharmacist could work on a simulated medical emergency; where a would-be recreation therapist, radiological technologist, dentist and cardiologist could meet and attend a lecture.
"The idea is that students will learn with, from and about each other to enhance the quality of care they’ll provide once they graduate."
