A pre-eminent leader in her field of nursing research, Dr. Linda McGillis Hall receives another career honour as the recipient of Bloomberg Nursing’s inaugural Kathleen Russell Distinguished Professor Award. This award recognizes the contributions Dr. McGillis Hall has made to nursing through her distinguished accomplishments, displays of exceptional promise, and an extraordinary level of activity in research and scholarly work.
“Kathleen Russell was an enormously influential national and international leader and had a significant impact on the development of nursing around the world,” said Sioban Nelson, Dean, Bloomberg Nursing. “It is only fitting that the Faculty’s first distinguished professorship in Kathleen’s name be awarded to another pioneer in nursing, Linda McGillis Hall, who has advanced our understanding of patient safety, staffing, retention, nurse migration and health human resource planning through her research.
The Associate Dean, Research and External Relations, Dr. McGillis Hall is a recognized leader in nursing health services and systems research, and is sought after by researchers, policy leaders and decision-makers both nationally and internationally. In 2007 she was the first Canadian nurse to be inducted as an American Academy of Nursing International Fellow. Then in 2008 she was the inaugural recipient of the Canadian Nurses Association Order of Merit for Nursing Research in Canada, and in the fall of 2010 was inducted as a fellow of the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Dr. McGillis Hall’s research has also earned her an Excellence in Nursing Research Award from the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing, a Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care [MOHLTC] Nursing Senior Career Research Award, a Canadian Institutes of Health Research [CIHR] New Investigator Award, a Premier’s Research Excellence Award from the Government of Ontario.
The University of Toronto established the Distinguished Professor program in recent years to advance key individuals working in areas of strategic importance. Dr. McGillis Hall will continue her tremendous contributions to nursing research while she holds this title for her five-year term.
As the Kathleen Russell Distinguished Professor, Dr. McGillis Hall’s work will continue to build academic, healthcare, policy, and stakeholder partnerships aimed at providing a better understanding of nursing health systems research with a focus on the highly topical issues of nurse licensing and labour mobility, as well as on nursing health systems and patient safety. Within this professorship, she will also establish and extend the Faculty’s collaborative partnerships with international nursing health systems researchers.