Doctoral Students

  • Dorothy Barnard
  • Rebecca Earle
  • Debra Orton
  • Cathy Simpson
  • Robin Urquhart

Dorothy Barnard

Dorothy was a PhD Candidate who worked with NELS in 2006-07 on a knowledge translation literature review for ICE. Dorothy was also a hemological oncologist who enabled the initial development of ICE Project 3. Dorothy is now retired but she and her work were very helpful in the early days of NELS ICE. Others have built further upon the groundwork that she laid for us with the IWK Health Services which cares for children and youth. She also prepared and provided the following report and presentation to us to bring us 'up to speed on the state-of the-art knowledge translation at that time: Overview of Knowledge Translation for NELS ICE. Her presentation slides are at: Knowledge Translation 101.

Rebecca Earle

Rebecca is a PhD candidate in the School of Nursing at Dalhousie University who will be doing her research on Exploring the attitudes and beliefs of health care professionals caring for children at end of life in the pediatric intensive care unit (PICU). Rebecca is anticipated to work with NELS on ICE Project 3 which explores issues for children and youth at end of life.Rebecca received her Master's in Nursing (Applied) from McGill University in 2003. Rebecca works as a Nurse at the IWK Health Centre in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

Cathy Simpson

Cathy completed her Interdisciplinary PhD at Dalhousie University in 2012 on Negotiating Uncertainty: Advance care planning in advanced chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Previously Cathy graduated from Dalhousie's Master's in Health Education program and received her Master of Divinity from Atlantic School of Theology in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Cathy worked with NELS ICE Co-Investigator Graeme Rocker under Project 7. In May 2009 Cathy presented Hope & Vulnerability: The ethical challenges of end-of-life care planning in chronic illness at a work-in-progress session on her thesis work. Cathy's interests are in working to adapt chronic care models for NS context to improve comprehensiveness, continuity, and access to palliative support in advanced COPD for both patients and their families. Also, therapeutic relationship and communication, hope, spirituality, end-of-life care planning, relational ethics in chronic illnesses such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).  

Robin Urquhart

In 2013, Robin was appointed Assistant Professor to build research in Surgery to at Capital Health. She works closely with Goeff Porter. She is also the Coordinator for the Cancer Outcomes Research (COR) unit which was initially developed by Eva Grunfeld when she was in Halifax. COR received a CIHR funded NET on access to quality care for persons with colorectal cancer which includes an end of life care component. Robin has worked with NELS ICE advising on knowledge exchange since 2007. She worked with Shauna McVorran and Grace Johnston to describe Shauna's Surveillance report development as a knowledge broker trainee. Robin received her Interdisciplinary PhD in 2013 at Dalhousie University with a focus on the role of the knowledge broker. The title of her disseration is Multi-Level Factors Influence the Implementation and Use Of Complex Innovations in Cancer Care: A Multiple Case Study of Synoptic Reporting in Nova Scotia. Numerous papers have been published from this work.  In 2010 Robin was awarded the Nova Scotia Research Foundation's John Reudy Award for her research on synopitic reporting.