Acute Perinatal Care Nurse Expert Witness

Professional Skills

I have a strong clinical background in nursing for the last 25 years primarily in acute and perinatal care.  During my career I have had many opportunities to use my personal traits as a creative person who thrives on change.  I took projects as they arose and took many concepts from ideas to reality.  I have a strong ability to see the big picture and many angles to a particular situation.  Using strong interpersonal skills and an ability to understanding differing opinions, I have brought groups together for a new way of doing things.

I have had great success writing proposals, presenting them to stakeholders and receiving funding for a number of projects.  All of the projects I have worked on involved change.  In order to manage these projects I used my skills to listen and communicate with all stakeholders to ensure the plan and implementation fit with how they needed to do their daily work.  Much of my time was spent helping these stakeholders address their own individual concerns and helping them to see how this could be a better way of doing things.  I have been able to manage all aspects of these projects including budget, staff, planning, risk assessment, implementation while tweaking on the way and evaluation.  Most of my experience involved learning new things with each position or project that I took.  I enjoy learning to gain a better understanding of the practice and people involved.  My strong educator and leadership skills, passion for learning and adaptability make me a good candidate for many different opportunities.
 
Employment

November 2008 to Present
Consultants
Owner/Lead Consultant
Consultants is a consulting firm specializing in Legal Nurse Consulting and Nursing project management. Consulting projects include providing nurse advisement primarily in perinatal nursing standards of care. Utilizing a strong background in perinatal nursing education and maintaining current expertise in the field to provide advice on maintaining standards of care.

January 2008 to November 2008
Northern Health
Program Executive Maternal/Child Services PGRH
Manager for patient care services for four acute care units in the Maternal/Child area. Utilized strong leadership, conflict management and communication skills.  Large budget responsibility and management of staffing, development and unit day to day function.  Responsible for over 100 employees and 150 member multidisciplinary team including physicians.  Worked closely with human resources and unions working on recruitment, staff discipline and improving workplace for staff.

November 2006 to January 2008
Northern Health
Project Lead – Technology Integration Project
Responsible for aspects of integrating technology use into nursing practice including knowledge, skill, usage and accessibility.  Developed and presented proposal to the NH board to show feasibility of the project, create enthusiasm and obtain funding.  During this project established a NH wide Nursing Technology Support Team.  Managed this team including hiring, budget management and day to day functioning.  Four internet cafes have been opened in the region with the largest at PGRH.  Involved in communications system implementations (Vocera).

Spring 2007
Northern Health
Move Transition Lead Maternity/Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Move
Responsible for coordinating the work of moving Maternity/NICU to new space and with new programs in Single Room Space.  Included non-nursing services including construction, biomed, purchasing, technologist and others.  Coordinated teams to stay on budget and do work to transition to new space to improve perinatal standards of care.

June 2005 to November 2006
Prince George Regional Hospital
Project Coordinator Nursing Turnover Study.

Jan 2002 to November 2006
Prince George Regional Hospital
Clinical Educator for Labour and Delivery and for Combined Family Care Unit (Antepartum/Postpartum).
Responsible for all orientation of new staff, ongoing professional development of staff, resource for region in perinatal nursing, policy and education program development. Acted as Prince George Coordinator for the Preceptorship Program. Acted as Chair for Northern Health Maternal/Child Committee, Perinatal Education Program Working Group. Developed Nursing education curriculum for Perinatal services across Northern Health.

Spring and Fall 2006
BCIT/Northern Health
Instructor – BCIT Rural Perinatal Nursing Course
Taught two groups of nurses across Northern Health.

Jan 2001 to October 2002
Dr. Paul Murray’s office
Nurse Consultant for a multi-physician medical office.
Chronic Disease management and prenatal nurse doing primary assessments of most patients and assisted with all procedures in the office.  Responsible for a program for patients with chronic disease, did regular assessments, provided counseling and support, and assisted with referrals to other programs.  Utilized MOIS Clinical Information System.

1991 – January 2002
Prince George Regional Hospital

Staff Nurse Labour and Delivery
1992 (one year project)
Prince George Regional Hospital/ Northern Interior Health Unit

Breastfeeding Consultant/Program Coordination

PGRH half of a partnership program with the community to initiate and evaluate a breastfeeding program. Responsible for program development; statistics gathering, budgeting, proposal writing and patient care coordination. Project resulted in a permanent lactation program at PGRH and writing/publishing of Standard of Care for Breastfeeding.

1987 – 1991
Prince George Regional Hospital
Staff Nurse
Worked as a staff nurse on Medical/Surgical Unit, Newborn Nursery and Special Care Nursery.

Education

1984 – 1987    College of New Caledonia    Prince George, BC

Diploma in Nursing

2004 British Columbia Institute of Technology    Burnaby, BC
Business Management and Perinatal Nursing Specialty Certificate

June 2005
UBC
Vancouver, BC
Diploma of Clinical Practice Education
This masters level course offers teaching and learning; preceptorship; program development; strategies for interaction.  The course is designed for educators in health care and interdisciplinary teams but is pertinent for any adult learning and course development.

September 2010
Certified Life Coach
Fowler/Wainwright International
Web

February 2011
Certified NLP Coach
Fowler/Wainwright International
Web

June 2011
Canadian Legal Nurse Consultants (Canlnc)  Web
Legal Nurse Consultant Certification

Publications

Available Upon Request

Certifications

Creative Instruction (CNC 2004)
Facilitating Flawlessly and Team Building Workshops (RNABC)
Essence of Leadership (Spring 2006, January 2008)

Professional Memberships

College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia

Project Experience

1996 Staffing Analysis for Labour and Delivery
Worked in a small committee of fellow nurses to analyze by gathering cost information and statistics of the staffing levels on our unit.  Resulted in the return of staffing levels after presentations to the Executive Director of Patient Care Services and our Patient Care Manager.

June 2000 to 2001
Northern Interior Nurses Group Co-Coordinator
Worked with a large group of nurses to develop the “Proposal for Retention and Recruitment of Nurses to PGRH”.  Helped coordinate the research, information gathering from task groups and writing of the proposal. I was one of the chief presenters of the proposal to the CEO of the Northern Interior Health Board, the NIHB, the College of New Caledonia Board of Directors, Prince George Citizens Health Group, City of Prince George City Council, and the University of Northern British Columbia. The presentation of the proposal was well received by all the groups we presented to.

January 2001
National Forum for Rural and Remote Health Care Prince George, BC
Was a speaker at the health forum to over 500 delegates on Retention and Recruitment of Nurses in Rural Areas.  Our information was especially well received by then Minister of Health Colin Hanson, other politicians and delegates from the Registered Nurses Association of BC.

May 2001
British Columbia Health Services/Ministry of Health
One of a four-person panel for the province to interview and help select the Chief Nursing Executive for the Ministry of Health of British Columbia.

April 2003 to 2006
Preceptorship Program Development
Worked with others to evaluate preceptorship programs and assisted a consultant from BC Women’s and Children’s Hospital to adapt a program for Northern Health. Assisted in the program development with the Nursing Strategy Coordinator. Collaborated with staff nurses, managers, educators, colleges, university and community.

2005
Single Room Maternity Care Renovation Team Leader
Researched best practices; collaborated with team (staff, managers, foundation members, family members, physicians, and support disciplines, architects) to plan for new renovation and merging of two units.  Assisted patient care manager with change initiatives, and provides education for proposed changes to all staff.