David Kenneth Wright

Academic Lead

David Kenneth Wright is a Full Professor at the University of Ottawa. He holds specialty certification in hospice palliative care nursing from the Canadian Nurses Association, and engaged in clinical practice in hospital-based palliative care as well as at a residential hospice. In 2021, he co-founded the Canadian Palliative Care Nursing Association. His current research projects focus on grief and grief literacy, nursing ethics and narrative methodologies.

Kim McMillan

Kim McMillan is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Ottawa. Her program of research focuses on the intersection of organizational life and ethical, relational and political nursing practice, focusing on how nurses experience and navigate their practice within highly complex healthcare systems. My program is grounded in critical theory, critical management studies (a branch of critical theory), relational ethics and feminist theory. My research incorporates qualitative methodologies leading to three main interacting axes of research activities that collectively serve to better understand nurses’ experiences working within contemporary healthcare organizations. These axes are Complexity of organizational life; Nurses and nursing work; Ethical, relational and socio-political practice. She holds specialty certification in hospice and palliative care from the Canadian Nurses Association. She has worked clinically in pediatric oncology, bone marrow transplant, and nephrology, often within the context of palliation.  Click here to learn more about Dr. Kim McMillan.

Christine McPherson

Christine McPherson is a Health Psychologist and Registered Nurse who acquired her Ph.D. from the Institute of Palliative Care and Policy at King’s College, London (UK). She is an Associate professor in the School of Nursing at the University of Ottawa, where she teaches research and palliative care at the graduate level in the MScN and PhD program. Her research interests include family caregiving, symptom assessment and management, and psychosocial issues in the context of advanced disease, where she is currently involved in several research projects. Her research has included systematic reviews in communication, provision of palliative care and psychosocial interventions for the National Health Service (NHS) Centre for Reviews and Dissemination at the University of York (UK), in addition to the development of nursing guidelines in end-of-life care for the Registered Nurses Association of Ontario (RNAO).

Dimitri Létourneau

Dimitri is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Nursing, Université de Montréal. He worked as a nurse clinician for nine years at the Jewish General Hospital (Montréal) where he provided medical-surgical and end-of-life care to an adult clientele. In 2022, he completed a postdoctoral fellowship under Dr. David Kenneth Wright’s supervision at the University of Ottawa. He has a research interest in pedagogical approaches and particularly those aimed at supporting humanization of care, moral agency, and professional identity.

Claire Ludwig

Claire Ludwig is the Executive Director, Clinical Operations, at The Ottawa Hospital. She received her PhD from the School of Nursing at the University of Ottawa in 2022. Her doctoral work was focused on patient engagement in research, specifically engaging frail and/or seriously ill patients as knowledge users. Her other research interests examine how patients and nurses negotiate the process of triage and self-care in cancer symptom management.

Vasiliki Bitzas

Vasiliki Bessy Bitzas is the Associate Director of Nursing at the Integrated University Health and Social Services Centres (CIUSSS) of West-Center Montreal.

Valerie Fiset

Val is the Director of the Champlain Hospice Palliative Care Program. Prior to taking on this role Val worked in the post-secondary nursing education sector in both Professor and Academic Administrator roles. Val completed her BScN at Queen’s University, and MScN and PhD at the University of Ottawa. Her CIHR-funded PhD research project was titled: “Nursing students’ use of guidelines for pain management in clinical practice – Context and influencing factors”.  Clinically, Val was an advanced practice nurse in palliative care, and worked in a variety roles and clinical settings in Ottawa and Montreal. Val is passionate about evidence-informed practice, gerontologic and palliative care nursing.

Susan Bratjman

Susan is a retired Associate Professor and current Adjunct Professor in the School of Nursing, University of Ottawa. She is a graduate of the Royal Victoria Hospital School of Nursing, McGill University, and De Montfort University in England. From 1984 till 2002 she lived in Israel, where her clinical experience involved community health nursing on a kibbutz, and clinical and administrative experience in palliative care as the Head Nurse of the Palliative Care Unit of Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem. Her research interests include end-of-life delirium, education for health care professionals in end-of- life care, and interprofessional education and practice. She was the co-founder and former Co-Director of this research hub (formerly known as the Nursing Palliative Care Research and Education Unit of the University of Ottawa).