Bloorview Research Institute

News: News: Making Research a Priority for Kids with Disabilities

Dr. Patricia McKeever: Chair in Childhood Disability Studies

Wearing the hats of researcher and advocate, Dr. Patricia McKeever has spent years promoting accessibility and inclusion for individuals with disabilities.

Now, she will be wearing a new hat – that of inaugural holder of the Bloorview Kids Foundation Chair in Childhood Disability Studies.

The chair comes with the expectation that the holder will conduct research that addresses the physical, social and policy barriers to inclusion that Canadian children with disabilities and their families encounter.

Pat was an easy choice for the position given her research expertise, excellence in teaching and drive to create innovative, interdisciplinary initiatives that address issues in participation and inclusion.

An example is the Home and Community Care Evaluation and Research Centre (HCERC) at the University of Toronto. Pat and health economist Peter Coyte raised more than $1 million to fund the centre, which enabled community partnerships, international mentorship and research collaborations focusing on home care for people of all ages and abilities.

In 2002, Pat played an integral part in transforming HCERC into the Health Care, Technology, and Place CIHR Strategic Training Program for Doctoral students and Post Doctoral fellows. This leading edge, innovative program took a broader perspective on the study of healthcare. It remains the only program in the world that focuses on the bio-medical, social, spatial and technological configurations that characterize successful contemporary Western health and social care.

Pat is a professor of nursing at the Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing at the University of Toronto.

As a mentor, Pat is a highly sought-after research supervisor with a broad range of expertise. To date, she has supervised post-doctoral, doctoral and masters students with backgrounds in geography, medicine, kinestheology, nursing, rehabilitation sciences and public health sciences. For her outstanding contributions to university teaching, Pat received the coveted Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations (OCUFA) Award and in 2006, was nominated for a President’s Teaching Award.

Pat is world-recognized and consulted widely about qualitative research methods, applications of contemporary social theory in applied health and health services research and pediatric hospital design. She has worked with the Design Exchange, been a board member of SickKids Research Ethics Board and frequently serves as a reviewer for a range of academic journals.

Under her leadership, we are confident that Pat will take Bloorview Kids Rehab to the next level in participation research to facilitate meaningful participation for all children with disabilities, improve self-esteem, future life outcomes and quality of life, creating infinite possibilities for kids with disabilities.

More on Dr. Patricia McKeever

Contact:

If you’d like more information on Bloorview’s new Research Chairs, please contact Louise Kinross, Communications Manager at
416-424-3866 or lkinross (at) hollandbloorview (dot) ca*(see Note below)

*Note: Copy the above e-mail address(es) into the To field of your e-mail message and reconstruct the e-mail address(es) by removing the spaces and replacing the “at” and “dot” with the proper symbols (@ and .) respectively.

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