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Marcia Porter

Seeing your byline in print can be pretty exciting, and that’s how six master’s students at ������Ƶ’s School of Nursing felt when they found out their work is being published in the Canadian Journal of Nursing Infomatics.

The Canadian Journal of Nursing Informatics is a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal that aims to promote the advancement of infomatics within Canada’s nursing community.

As part of their course work for Dr. Wendy Young’s distance education class in nursing infomatics, students were asked to write final papers that focused on a project they would like to see implemented in the practice setting.

Nursing infomatics is a specialty that facilitates integration of health care data, information and knowledge to support nursing practice and decision-making -- using high quality research to propose evidence-based change.

“Having a piece of work published feels like obtaining success at a level that is different from academic accomplishment,” said Carla Kennedy, one of the master’s students and a critical care nurse at St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital. “I’m surprised, and humbled.”

Ms. Kennedy, a graduate of the Western Regional School of Nursing, wrote about the use of mobile communications in health-care delivery with co-author Dr. Young, an assistant professor in the School of Nursing and the Canada Research Chair in Healthy Aging.

Seeking publication in the journal was voluntary and beyond the scope of the students’ course work. The issue is including a special section to showcase student work, with the ������Ƶ nursing students’ papers the first to be selected to appear.

“I feel fortunate to have my work published this early in the master’s program,” said Sarah Payne, who wrote her paper about electronic documentation. “I am very proud of this accomplishment and it certainly inspires me to continue my studies.”

A graduate of the Centre for Nursing Studies and a staff nurse in the surgical unit at the Janeway Children’s Hospital, Ms. Payne explored the benefits of using electronic documentation systems to document vital clinical information that nurses would typically record on paper charts.

“We encourage our students to publish, and to engage in scholarly activity,” said Dr. Shirley Solberg, associate dean (graduate programs and research) at the School of Nursing. “It’s absolutely essential if we are to develop and share new knowledge.”

“Our nursing students are interested in using nursing informatics to improve patient care, and I’m so proud of them,” said Dr. Young. “Writing and researching these articles gets them thinking and writing about important issues, and it’s really helpful to have a publication on their resumés.”