David Kenneth Wright

Academic Lead

David is an Associate Professor in the School of Nursing, University of Ottawa. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in biomedical ethics at McGill University, and currently works clinically at a freestanding palliative care residence in Montreal. His research seeks to understand, typically from the standpoint of nurses, how values at stake are realized or thwarted in contemporary contexts of end-of-life care.

Raissa Passos Dos Santos

Academic Coordinator

Raissa is a nurse and researcher interested in advancing care for children with complex needs. She completed her doctoral degree at McGill University in 2021. Her research program was focused on the diverse perspectives associated with the experiences of children living with medical complexity. During the Ph.D. program, she was the recipient of the David McCutcheon Pediatric Palliative Care Doctoral Fellowship and awarded the Doctoral training scholarship from the Fonds de Recherche Santé du Quebec (FRQ-S). She is presently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Montreal Shriners Hospitals for Children in collaboration with McGill University and a Research Associate in the VOICE team (Views On Interdisciplinary Childhood Ethics) at McGill University. Her research interests include Pediatric Nursing, Health Care of Children with Medical Complexity, Pediatric Palliative Care, Global Health, Ethics and Bioethics in Pediatrics, and Nursing Ethics and Practice.

Marianne Sofronas

Post-Doctoral Fellow

Marianne is a nurse, clinical ethicist, and anthropologist. She is currently a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Ottawa with the PCNE Hub, working with Dr. Kim McMillan on a CIHR funded study on creating compassionate communities and enabling environments to enhance nurse retention and return to work. Marianne’s research interests include neuropalliative care, clinical ethics, personhood in illness, clinical and organizational applications of compassionate frameworks, and ethnography with vulnerable populations. She is a faculty lecturer at the Ingram School of Nursing, and a clinical ethicist at the McGill University Health Centre. Marianne completed her PhD in nursing at McGill University in 2022, and her doctoral project was an ethnography of neuropalliative care. Marianne also holds an BA (McGill) and MA (New School for Social Research) in anthropology, and an MSc (McGill) in nursing. She is the recipient of multiple awards and fellowships, including the Richard and Edith Strauss Clinical Research Doctoral Fellowship (2016-2018), and Doctoral Training Awards from the Fonds de Recherche Santé du Québec (2018-2022), and the Quebec Ministere de l’Enseignement Superieur /OIIQ (2021-2022). Prior to obtaining her PhD, Marianne worked for over a decade as a nurse clinician in neuro-critical care.

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).

Kim McMillan

Dr. McMillan’s 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.

Vasiliki Bitzas

Vasiliki Bessy Bitzas is the Clinical Administrative Coordinator of Palliative Care at the Integrated University Health and Social Services Centres (CIUSSS).

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 Brajtman

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).

Lacie White

Lacie White is an Assistant Professor in the School of Nursing at Cape Breton University. She completed graduate studies at the University of Ottawa, receiving the Governor General’s Gold Medal award for her doctoral thesis. With a clinical background in palliative care, her research interests include relational ethics, contemplative approaches to practice, and embodiment through strong emotion and uncertainty. Drawing on emergent narrative and arts-based methods, Lacie seeks to explore the more intangible aspects of experience.

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.