Mandate:
The Student Committee is a voice for RQSPAL’s graduate and postgraduate students and serves a preferential channel of communication between the next generation and the directors. Its goal is to ensure a stimulating and structured living and learning environment to all of the RQSPAL’s students. Its mandate is to represent all students registered in graduate level studies whose research activities relate to palliative and end-of-life care. Its function is to advise the Executive and Scientific committees about its priorities, to participate in the RQSPAL’s mandate and to increase knowledge diffusion and transfert. The Student Committee can also participate in developing activities that can increase student members’ involvement and feelings of belonging to the RQSPAL.
Membership:
The Student Committee consists of graduate and post-graduate students registered in a university program and represents all RQSPAL’s student members. Ideally, the committee includes five members distributed as follows: two Master’s level students, two doctoral level students, and one postdoctoral intern. The RQSPAL’s coordinator (non-voting) is also in the Student Committee. The Student Commitee’s members are:
Malek Amiri, PhD candidate in Nursing, Université Laval, supervised by Nicolas Vonarx
Malek holds a bachelor’s degree in experimental sciences as well as an applied license and a master’s degree with thesis in nursing sciences. He wants to pursue a career in university teaching and contribute to the development of new nursing theories that inspire palliative care practitioners.
Under the supervision of Nicolas Vonarx, he is currently interested in the end-of-life experience of people with cancer by addressing anxiety about death from the philosophical perspective of Martin Heidegger. To this end, his thesis is part of a methodological stance that advocates understanding and interpretation rather than quantification and confirmation. It seeks to clarify the experience of anguish in the face of death in order to eventually develop nursing interventions adapted to the experience of people living in advanced cancer.
Sabrina Anissa El-Mansali, PhD candidate in Psychoeducation, Université de Sherbrooke, supervised by Deborah Ummel and Anne-Maris Tougas
A volunteer at the CHUM (listening and support to patients), she demonstrates an interest in end of life, more specifically, the experience of pre-mourning and of mourning. Understanding these two phenomena will allow her to intervene with adolescents who have lost a parent following a foreseeable loss (eg. cancer).
Thanks to a qualitative estimate, her objective is to identify the psychosocial needs of families in which a teenager will experience the foreseeable loss of a parent. Having several perspectives (interveners, parents, adolescents) will make it possible to propose different avenues of intervention among these families.
Sophie Boies, master’s student in Social Work, Université du Québec à Montréal, supervised by Isabelle Dumont
For over a year, Sophie discovered the world of pediatric palliative care as a volunteer at Le Phare, Enfants et Familles. She then became a research intern among the pediatrics palliative care team at CHU Sainte-Justine. These experiences made her discover a strong interest in research and support for seriously ill children and their families, which motivated her to pursue her studies for a master’s degree in social work.
As part of her master’s project, she explores the role of the social worker within interdisciplinary pediatric palliative care teams, in order to contribute to the development of practices.
Jessica Boivin, master’s student in Epidemiology, Université Laval, supervised by Bruno Gagnon
Jessica is a research professional with the Michel-Sarrazin Research Team in Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care (ERMOS) and a member of the Board of the Michel-Sarrazin Institute for Palliative and End-of-Life Care-Laval University (ISPFV MS – ULaval). These experiences have allowed her to develop her interests in clinical trials in psycho-oncology, end-of-life care and cognitive loss in cancer patients while using various quotes (quantitative, qualitative, and mixed).
As part of her thesis, she is interested in the perception and experiences of palliative care teams in relation to psychomotor retardation in patients with advanced cancer not suffering from delirium and the effect of methylphenidate on the cognitive function in patients in remission from breast cancer.
Émilie Cormier, PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology, Université du Québec à Montréal, supervised by Valérie Bourgeois-Guérin
After completing a master’s degree in therapy through the arts, Émilie is currently a doctoral candidate in psychology. Motivated by her internship and volunteer experiences with people at the end of life and street elders, her doctoral research project aims to better understand the experience of end-of-life palliative care among elderly people who live or who have lived in a situation of homelessness. An understanding that could, she hopes, contribute to the development of support practices that are more sensitive and adapted to the reality of the end of life of these people in precarious situations. By apprehending their end-of-life experience through the figure of the house and the existential notion of inhabiting it, she also seeks to glimpse what, on the verge of death, could potentially shed light on how to better support people experiencing homelessness throughout their life.
Alexandra Guité-Verret, PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology, Université de Québec à Montréal, supervised by Mélanie Vachon
Alexandra has a master’s degree in literature from the University of Montreal. She is interested in the social and individual representations of dying and disease, more particularly in the use of metaphors of breast cancer in patients undergoing treatment, in remission, or at the end of life.
Based on qualitative research, she tries to understand the impact of representations of illness on the patient’s experience, on the role of the caregiver, and on the patient’s transition from the world of cancer to that of palliative care. Her role as a volunteer companion for oncology patients at the Fondation Virage du CHUM is a continuation of her research.
Nataly R. Espinoza Suarez, PhD candidate in Community Health, Université Laval, supervised by Lynn Gauthier and Annie LeBlanc.
During her training course as a family physician in Peru, Nataly was introduced to the world of palliative care and research. Following this new passion, Nataly spent 4 years at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where she learned about shared decision making, clinical communication, quantitative methodology, and qualitative research. She had also worked with professionals in critical care, internal medicine, and family medicine.
As a result of this experience, Nataly chose to pursue a PhD in community health to strengthen her research skills and continue her work on ethnic minorities. Her research also focuses on the experiences of patients in need of palliative care and clinical communication in the context of palliative care.
Her doctoral project uses a mixed method that will use a phenomenological approach to the analysis of interviews and photovoices in order to be able to understand and describe what are the social, spiritual, physical, and psychological factors that influence the grief experiences of Hispanic women who are survivors of breast cancer, during and after cancer treatment. Ideally, thanks to this project, Nataly will be able to contribute to improving provided to women from ethnic minorities living in Quebec.
Lye-Ann Robichaud, PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology, Université de Montréal, supervised by Serge Sultan
Lye-Ann discovered psychosocial oncology while working as a research assistant in the Michel-Sarrazin Research Team in Psychosocial Oncology and Palliative Care (ERMOS) for over two years. This immersion in this field was one of her first contacts with research. She immediately fell in love with psycho-oncology. This experience allowed her too develop a keen interest in improving the quality of life in palliative care, for which she decided to pursue her doctoral studies under the supervision of Dr. Serge Sultan.
As part of her thesis, she wants to better understand the assessment of the quality of life of children with advanced cancer in order to improve the quality of life of these children.
François Tardif, RQSPAL’s coordinator, guest
You can learn more about Student Committee’s members on their Facebook page!