"This last point is a particularly salient one," says Sheli Murphy, Vice President Operations for the Misericordia and Executive Lead for research within Caritas.  "Our organization clearly values research.  Our vision directs us to be seekers, our mission speaks of nurturing the mind and our guiding principles articulate the need to fulfill our mission through encouraging and facilitating learning, education and research."

In addition to organizational commitment, another key aspect of creating a nursing research culture, Dean Gray indicated, is ensuring a development orientation to the nursing workforce.  This is where her faculty at the University of Alberta plays a key role.  As the largest nursing faculty in Canada, with over 1,000 undergraduate, 140 masters and 63 doctoral students, the faculty is also a leader in nursing research.  Fostering a passion for research in nursing students will perpetuate more research to take place – the benefits of which are plentiful and include a highly qualified workforce, opportunities for mentoring, increased access to research grants and greater collaboration between health care providers and academic institutions.

 

But the greatest benefit, both Gray and Murphy agree, is that nursing research will help us to care for those we serve better.  "Research strengthens our knowledge and defines new avenues of thinking and doing, "says Murphy.  For too long we have cares for patients in a specific way because we are taught to do it that way instead of having solid, empirical knowledge that it is the best way to do things.  Basing our nursing practice on scientific evidence will shape changes in how we care."