2026 Edmonton Nursing Research Luncheon - More Details Here

Don’t Miss Our Signature Event – Early Bird Tickets On Sale Feb 15–Mar 15!

Join us at the Edmonton Nursing Research Luncheon for an inspiring afternoon celebrating innovation, research, and the powerful impact of nurses.

Hear from thought-provoking speakers, discover groundbreaking research, and connect with leaders and changemakers in our community. Enjoy a catered lunch, meaningful networking opportunities, and exciting silent auction items.

🎉 Bonus: Early Bird ticket purchasers will be entered into a draw for a chance to win a $100 West Edmonton Mall gift card!

Can’t join us but still want to show your support? You can donate a ticket for another nurse using the link below and help ensure more nurses can attend this inspiring event.

Early Bird tickets are just $59 — available February 15 to March 15. Secure your seat (or sponsor one!) today and be part of this energizing and impactful afternoon.

Click below to reserve or donate a ticket!

Meet Our Speakers:

Jessica Jenkins & Mia Bernadine-Torres: Child visitors in ICU

The adult intensive care unit (ICU) is a high acuity and technical environment which historically has excluded child visitors. Today, most ICUs in Alberta have no restrictions on child visitors, but many families are hesitant to bring children to the bedside. Families may feel that the ICU is not a safe place for children, they may fear that children would find visiting critically ill family members distressing, and they may worry they do not have the capacity to support their child’s needs. When children do visit, healthcare providers (HCP) are often tasked with supporting them without developmentally appropriate training or resources to guide how to best support the child’s needs in crisis. 

Our team, funded through ANET, has embarked on a multiphase project to explore facilitators and barriers to child visitors in adult ICUs and to identify ways to support them. We have completed the first phase of this project, surveying healthcare providers about perceived facilitators and barriers to child visitors. In the next phase of research, we seek to better understand families’ perceptions of child visitors, children’s needs, and perceived barriers to visiting to create a family-centered, family-informed approach to supporting child visitors in ICU. We intend to use the outcomes of this research program to develop a framework to support child visitors that could be incorporated into ICUs across Alberta, either directly or with local adaptation as needed. Understanding family perspectives on child visitors in ICU and identifying perceived barriers, facilitators, and needs is an important next step to address this current care gap. 

Mia-Bernadine Torres has first hand experience as a child visitor in ICU which has informed her career as an nurse. Jessica Jenkins is an NP in ICU and Adjunct Faculty with the University of Calgary, Faculty of Nursing.

Mia-Bernadine Torres Jessica Jenkins

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Lauren Dobson, Sarah Southon Hryniuk, Kathryn Palamarek & Kathleen Shearer: Scoliosis in Children

Surgical wait times remain a significant challenge in Alberta, particularly for children requiring corrective surgery for scoliosis. At the Stollery Children’s Hospital, some children wait years for surgery, during which time their spinal curves may progress, making surgery more complex and recovery more difficult.

To help address this issue, the surgical team introduced an innovative program called Double Spine Days. On these days, two scoliosis surgeries are carefully planned and safely completed within a single operating day. This approach uses existing staff and resources with the goal of increasing surgical capacity and reducing wait times for children in need of care.

This research project will retrospectively review patient records from 2022 to 2026, matching patients by number of vertebrae fused and curve severity. The study will compare outcomes from Double Spine Days versus traditional single-spine surgery days to determine whether this model improves operating room efficiency while maintaining patient safety and quality of care. Outcomes of interest include surgical timing, postoperative pain, length of hospital stay, and overall recovery.

In addition, we will examine whether the total number of scoliosis surgeries increased in the year following the program’s implementation, led by the Stollery operative team in collaboration with research partners.

This project aims to support safe, high-quality surgical care for children with scoliosis. If successful, the Double Spine Day model could be expanded within the Stollery Children’s Hospital and adapted by other hospitals across Alberta and Canada.

Lauren Dobson, Sarah Southon Hryniuk, Kathryn Palamarek & Kathleen Shearer

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Angie Grewal and Keith Johnston: ICU Survivorship and Caregivers

Keith Johnston is the Advisor of Strategic Partnerships with Caregivers Alberta, where he plays a key role in cultivating partnerships and collaborations with organizations and individuals to benefit and support caregivers. With over 25 years of experience in the non-profit and disability sectors, Keith has supported the development and launch of Caregiver Connect, Resource Roadmap and is current working on a project that will support caregivers who are supporting a loved one transitioning from acute care. He is deeply passionate about caregiving and is committed to ensuring caregivers have the resources and support they need to maintain their well-being while continuing to provide the highest level of care to their loved ones.

Aninder (Angie) Kaur Grewal is a PhD student in Nursing at the University of Alberta and a critical care nurse with over 15 years of frontline experience. Born in Punjab, India, and raised in Canada from the age of two, she brings a unique perspective shaped by both cultural identity and lived caregiving experience. Her research explores ICU survivorship and the impact of post-intensive care syndrome on family caregivers, with a focus on Punjabi and South Asian communities. Angie serves as co-lead of the Alberta Chapter of the Canadian Association of Critical Care Nurses (CACCN) and co-chair of the Edmonton Zone Family-Centered Care Committee. As a social prescriber, she works to connect critical care clinicians with community-based supports to enhance family-centered care. She is also a wife and mother of two children, aged 14 and 13, and is deeply committed to advancing health equity through research, advocacy, and practice.

Keith Johnston Angie Grewal

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