Seminar Series – April 2024 – Linda Hunter

Linda Hunter – Regaining Power and Control Living with Chronic Pain: My Journey as a Patient Research Partner

Biography:

Linda is a semi-retired executive health care leader and former Chief Nurse Executive and ICU nurse who has worked locally, nationally, and internationally in healthcare over the last 35 years. Linda has worked clinically, in education, and administration, throughout the continuum of care in healthcare. Linda is an expert in quality improvement and performance measurement and has worked extensively in the quality and patient safety fields in healthcare. She is also a patient and lives with spinal stenosis, osteoarthritis, fibromyalgia, and severe degenerative disc disease and has lived with chronic pain for over 15 years. Linda is a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Patient Engagement Research Ambassador for the Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis and is a member of the Institute’s Advisory Board. She has co-developed online educational modules for patients and researchers about Patient Engagement in Research. Linda is an Essential Caregiver to her Mum, who lives with dementia, and is a volunteer who provides palliative and end-of-life care to residents in long-term care.

Learning objectives – Participants will be able to:

• Understand how a patient diagnosis can lead to a journey that ends in patient partnership in research,
• Describe what patient engagement in research really means,
• Explain some common challenges and barriers that frustrate patient partners,
• Examine how you might be more open to patient co-partnership in research.