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Alberta's nursing architect |
Dr. Shirley Stinson |
When Dr. Shirley Stinson was a teenager in Arlee, Saskatchewan in the early '40s, a nursing career was the furthest thing from her mind. Her hero in those days was the brilliant architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and she dreamed of someday heading to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to follow his example.
Fortunately for Canadian nursing, Stinson's life never took that course, and yet Wright has, in a sense, remained the beacon for her career. Stinson has been described as "the architect of nursing research," not only in Alberta, but across the country. When she is asked what quality best describes her contribution to the profession, she answers with conviction: "vision."
"I do love design," she says, "whether it's social or academic, or (applied to) buildings, the principles are the same. Frank Lloyd Wright made structures fit the environment-that is the essence of what I was trying to do." And so Stinson decided early in her career to devote her talent to administration, to laying the groundwork for strong nursing research, rather than becoming what she calls "an ace, capital-'r' researcher" herself.
Stinson received her BSc in nursing from the University of Alberta in 1953, then worked for a time as a public health nurse in rural Alberta. In 1958 she received her master's in nursing service administration from the University of Minnesota, and in 1969 her doctorate in higher education in nursing from Columbia. She returned to teach at the University of Alberta, the first nurse west of Winnipeg to hold a doctorate.
"Many people didn't know nurses did research," especially in the mid-'70s, says Dr. Helen Mussallen, former executive director of the Canadian Nurses Association. Stinson encouraged people to see nursing as both a sophisticated practice and legitimate field of research, not merely a service secondary to medicine. Mainly because of her leadership, the University of Alberta launched a nursing masters program in 1975 and a doctoral program in 1991.
However Stinson's most impressive talent, say colleagues, is an ability to forge lasting connections around the world, consulting for countries as far away as Israel and Colombia. At a time when no solid international nursing network existed, she organized the first International Nursing Research Conference in North America, held in Edmonton in 1986 and hosting more than 700 registrants from 38 countries. Stinson still gets calls in the middle of the night from people around the world seeking advice or simply tracking down a phone number.
"She is, of all the professionals I know in our field, the networker par excellence," says Ginette Rodger, president-elect of the Canadian Nurses' Association. Stinson tapped her network to launch "Operation Bootstrap," pressuring the Medical Research Council to support nursing research and develop doctoral programs across Canada. She also served as president elect and president of the Canadian Nurses' Association from 1978 to 1982.
Closer to home, however, it was as instigator and first chair of the Alberta Foundation for Nursing Research (AFNR) that Stinson made her biggest impact on the profession in this province. In the late '70s, she lobbied tirelessly to secure for nursing a small slice of funding from the Alberta Heritage Foundation for Medical Research.
"At some point far into the future," she told government officials, "we may be in a position to secure private funding for nursing research. In the meantime, our medical colleagues, who were given some $300 million in Heritage funding, are not being asked to sell muffins, are they? And we should not be asked to do so either."
But convincing the government to hand over Heritage dollars was not easy, especially since nurses were far from popular at the time. There had been several nurses' strikes, and the government was under pressure to show a firm hand in dealing with the unrest. But Stinson and other nursing leaders inundated then premier, Peter Lougheed, with letters of outrage. In the end, the government relented; $1 million was set aside for nursing research, the first fund of its kind in the Western world.
Stinson held the chair of the foundation from 1982 until 1988, encouraging practicing nurses to explore research projects directly related to their field work. "I think the foundation gave the entire nursing profession in Alberta a higher profile," says Catherine Gordey, a former policy analyst for Alberta Technology, Research and Telecommunications. "It confirmed that nurses are masters in their own right, and not anybody's servants."
In 1990, Stinson won the Jeanne Mance Award, the highest nursing award in Canada for a lifetime of outstanding contributions to the profession at the national level. Though officially retired since 1993, she has hardly slowed her pace. Her latest cause is the prevention of heart attacks and strokes through valid blood pressure assessment. She also continues to work the phones on behalf of international nursing.
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