June Kaminski

Since 1989, June has worked as faculty at Kwantlen University College in Surrey, British Columbia , primarily teaching Research, Inquiry and Data Analysis courses to third and fourth year BSN students. She began her education in Nursing Informatics through various upper level and graduate courses in computer programming and applications in Education. These were done as a minor to her Masters of Science in Nursing at the University of BC from 1987 to 1991. In 1986 she served as the Medical - Surgical ward trainer for nurses being orientated to the new Hospital Information System at a Vancouver hospital where she worked as a staff nurse. Helping nurses learn to integrate computer use into their nursing practice became a fascination of June's which she has continued to indulge over the past sixteen years. Since 1990, June has taught students how to incorporate computers into nursing practice and education. In 1996, she developed integrated learning activities for Nursing Informatics for every nursing course in the program, offering a web-based program of study and paper manual approach, to encourage self-directed study for students to access lessons both within the class room and on personal computers on campus, in libraries, or at home. The web version is at http://www.nursing-informatics.com/kwantlen

 

In 2002, June began PhD study in the Faculty of Curriculum Studies and Technology Studies at the University of British Columbia . Her doctoral dissertation focus is "The In/Visibility of Nurses in Cyberspace," focusing on the process of creating a community and nursing culture within the virtual environment. She has created a web site to explore the current status of nurses in cyberspace, viewable at:

http://www.nursing-informatics.com/visiblenurse.html June is also developing a web environment to promote professional development in nursing informatics for practicing nurses, at http://www.nursing-informatics.com . As well, she engages in freelance web design and writing. In January 2003, June was elected as Director of Communications for the Canadian Nursing Informatics Association (CNIA).

 

Virtual Nursing Practice and Culture

The virtual environment is evolving into a context for professional collaboration, content exchange, mentorship and creative endeavors. Cyberspace is becoming an accessible place for the building of intellectual assets, where knowledge can be effectively identified, distributed and shared with peers. Nursing professionals are joining this growing evolution in a number of different ways. Nursing research and experiential papers focused on the use of virtual environments in these contexts provide insight into this developing phenomenon. Communities can amplify innovation - when groups become aware of what they can do online, they go beyond problem-solving and start inventing together. Nursing informatics is advanced by exploring the ways that nurses are shaping and contributing to the virtual environment - as professionals, peers, disseminators of health information and client education, researchers, advocates and activists. This focus also illuminates the culture that permeates and fuels these activities, and supports ways to identify, describe and cultivate a culture of nursing informatics using the online environment as a context.

 

The use of the virtual environment for actual nursing practice is another aspect of nursing informatics. Client teaching, assessment, interdisciplinary care collaboration, project design and management, counseling and other forms of delivering nursing related activities are all relevant. As well, the application of nursing knowledge to online health information, illustrating how nurses can function as authors, web designers and accountable conveyors of accurate online health information all contribute to the application of nursing informatics to the virtual environment.