ABRN-Summer14

committee’s
choice
Dorothy
Phillips
MN, BScN, RN
Health Canada
Dorothy Phillips has recently retired from a position as
clinical nurse specialist in Wounds, Ostomy and Continence
for Health Canada (Alberta Region) while also serving as
an Academic Advisor for the Canadian Association for
Enterostomal Therapists. This final federal position and
profile capped an amazing career for a special nurse.
Her successful efforts improving home care in various
communities around Alberta found a national platform
from which to improve care for ostomy patients across the
country – many of them in First Nations and Inuit communities.
Dorothy worked part-time as she studied to be a nurse –
no small task for a single parent with two small children.
But it was time well-spent.
“I was going to be the best two-year nursing grad in
the world. I also knew a diploma was only the start.
I told my children at graduation that to be a nursing
teacher I would need a master’s degree.”
She got it. As a clinical nurse specialist in long-term care,
Dorothy noticed that several residents had troublesome
ostomies and that timely access to an enterostomal therapist
was difficult. She decided to become an enterostomal therapist
in order to meet those needs.
“I know that staff who worked with me often wondered
what planet I came from because my thoughts were
so different, but they were able to see the results and
soon changed their thinking as well.”
Dorothy enhanced a Nurse Authorizer Process in Alberta to
include clinical consultation. This process allows home care
nurses (RNs) who have participated in mandatory educational
offerings developed by Dorothy to access wound, ostomy
and continence products for their clients without the required
physician’s script.
“When I thought long and hard about what else
I could do, I discovered that I could do anything
as long as I was able to use my nursing knowledge,
but there was nothing else I wanted to be other
than a nurse.”
The nursing profession and thousands of patients nationwide
are grateful for Dorothy coming to that conclusion.
30
Alberta RN Summer 2014 Volume 70 No 2
www.nurses.ab.ca
William Au Photography