[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/myrick.jpg” caption=”Florence Myrick, an associate professor for the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta will provide the inaugural Bernice King Lectureship in Clinical Nursing Education.”]A new lecture series being launched by McMaster's School of Nursing is designed to enhance clinical nursing education through innovation and collaboration with health-care partners.

The Inaugural Bernice King Lectureship in Clinical Nursing Education will take place on Nov. 17 at St. Joseph's Healthcare. The speaker is Florence Myrick, an associate professor for the Faculty of Nursing at the University of Alberta, who has extensive experience as a nurse and nurse educator in five provinces and the Northwest Territories.

Myrick's lecture is entitled Preceptorship: Preparation for Professional Practice. It will be followed by a discussion panel and a question and answer session.

The event will take place at the Juravinski Innovation Tower, Room T2203, from 2 to 4:30 p.m.

Myrick trained as a nurse in Newfoundland, and received a post-RN Certificate in Intensive Care Nursing from the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg. She later earned a M.Sc. in nursing at the University of Western Ontario in London, and a PhD in nursing from the University of Alberta.

She taught for 10 years at Dalhousie University in Halifax, before moving back to Alberta, where she was an associate professor at the University of Calgary from 1998 to 2003. Myrick also held the positions of associate dean, graduate programs and acting dean, before moving on to the University of Alberta.

Her research work focuses on preceptorship and other types of professional education, and she is co-investigator on two multidisciplinary studies of those who work in the helping professions.

She is also co-author of a book entitled Nursing Preceptorship: Connecting Practice & Education.

The lecture is named in honour of Bernice King, a former assistant clinical professor in McMaster's School of Nursing, in recognition of her outstanding contributions to clinical education of nursing students as well as many other health discipline students.

King, who lives in Hamilton, worked with William Spaulding when the McMaster Medical Centre opened in the early 1970s, and pioneered the nursing role in the diabetic day care clinic. She was also instrumental in establishing a chronic care unit and developing palliative care at Chedoke-McMaster Hospitals. Prior to her retirement two years ago, she was the nursing practice liaison at Hamilton Health Sciences' McMaster site, developing and promoting policies and guidelines to support professional nursing practice, education and research.

Throughout her career she was a proponent of interprofessional collaboration and sought the best from students.

The lecture is open to all, and those planning to attend are asked to register by contacting Betty McCarthy at 905-525-9140, ext. 22405, or bmccarth@mcmaster.ca. Attendance is limited to 150.

The new lecture is just one initiative that McMaster's School of Nursing has undertaken as it implements a new preceptorship program for the McMaster Mohawk Conestoga Bachelor of Science, Nursing program.

A fresh approach to the Preceptorship Handbook, BScN Preceptor Awards of Distinction and improved access to continuing education workshops for registered nurses working with students are all components of the new BScN Preceptorship Program that has come to fruition in the past 10 months.

Under the direction of E. Ann Mohide, chair of the Preceptorship Program and associate professor in the School of Nursing, a standing committee has developed a program designed to benefit students, preceptors and faculty tutors. It aims to strengthen clinical nursing education, enhance students' preparation for professional work, foster professional development of preceptors and improve communication among all stakeholders.