Awards
Members love celebrating the successes of their fellow nurses and so CAHN’s recognition ceremony is a meaningful annual highlight. To make this happen, nominate a nurse you know who deserves recognition for the great work they are doing.
Awards
Acknowledgment of Retiring or Leaving Hepatology
Presented to a CAHN member who is either retiring or leaving the hepatology specialty area; or who retired or moved after the previous year’s AGM without receiving an acknowledgement.
Rising Star Award
Presented to a CAHN member who in a short time has been able to demonstrate an exceptional contribution to Hepatology nursing.
Distinguished Service Award
This award is a way to acknowledge and thank members who have worked diligently to make the organization as strong and vibrant as it is today.
Lifetime Achievement Award
This award is a way for CAHN to show our deep appreciation for outstanding colleagues who have “lit the way” for Hepatology nursing and are leaving the profession or the field.
Awards of Innovation & Inspiration
Presented to a visionary nurse or team who is doing something novel or “working out of the box” in some creative way to improve Hepatology care.
Exceptional Contribution to Hepatology Nursing Award
Do you know an amazing individual nurse who has gone above and beyond to make the field of Hepatology nursing better? This is your “Nurse of the Year” candidate!
2024 Award Recipients
Colina Yim
Lifetime Achievement Award
Coming soon.
Kate Dunn
Innovation and Inspiration
We would like to recognize Dr. Kate Dunn for her work focused on increasing awareness of hCV in a Culturally safe Way, with a focus on Provision of liver care in indigenous communities.
Kate started working in HCV care in 2018 and was closely involved in the alberta Echo program. She noted early on that building relationships was essential for providing care within Indigenous populations and that considering Indigenous Perspectives on Health and wellness could help guide interventions, allowing for culturally connected care and the development of tools and resources geared toward liver health for all.
She has Pursued advanced education including a Masters degree in public health as well as a doctorate in social sciences focusing on Indigenous health, and subsequently joined the York University School of Nursing as an Assistant professor of Indigenous health, history and healing. Her doctoral work engaged in Knowledge seeking and co-creation with indigenous knowledge keepers in alberta, to produce a film on the Story of liver wellness related to Hepatitis c, to inspire increased engagement in HCV screening and Treatment in indigenous Communities.
CAHN has been Fortunate that Kate has shared with us steps in her journey Through presenting at meetings and conferences.
Lori Lee Walston
Distinguished Service
The Distinguished Service Award is a way to recognize a member who has worked diligently and contributed to making CAHN strong and vibrant today. It is the day to day, and often less visible details of organizational management, that keeps operations going. The role of treasurer is one of those jobs. Lori Lee has served as CAHN’s treasurer since 2016 – EIGHT years. Lori Lee has been instrumental in migrating all of the accounting, budget, invoice payments and book keeping to digital format with Quickbooks. She has also kept us on track with reviewing financial plans, investing strategies, and just overall management of CAHN’s finances, by bringing critical questions back to the board.
I would also like to share how I personally got to know Lori Lee when she was working at the LAIR Centre. She was always recognized by the Okanagan and Kootenay nurses as an expert go to person over the years of the changing hep C drugs and access criteria. More importantly she was a resource for us to send our patients to for a clinical trial, especially leading up to the approvals of the DAA’s.
When I mentioned to my Okanagan/Kootenay colleagues we were nominating Lori Lee for Distinguished Service they immediately had many wonderful things to say, how responsive she was to complex patient treatment questions, and Lori Lee could always be relied upon to get back with an answer. Many of us work as lone rangers in smaller centres and the relationship with colleagues across the province and across the country is valued. Having that person to reach out to with questions or to run a patient case study by is appreciated.
Lori Lee can be commended for her expertise and her efficiencies. She was always mastering ways to do better and do it faster. Which is exactly what she did when she joined the CAHN executive in the treasurer role. We could all rely on her to get us our hotel and travel refunds in the absolute most efficient way possible.
Molly McDonald
Rising Star Award
Molly is truly a rising star in Hepatology.
She has amazing energy and vision in seeing through RN-led innovation in hepatology, with a particular focus in cirrhosis and alcohol-associated liver disease. Through her study, she was able to demonstrate the safety of an RN-led paracentesis model. From this work, she was awarded a Collaborative Academic Practice fellowship at the University Health Network to develop educational materials for RNs to perform paracentesis across the organization. The material can be translational across the organization, as well as outside the walls of UHN. Furthermore, she has been instrumental in creating an organization-wide procedural policy that could also be shared outside the walls of UHN.
This year, she is working on an innovative RN-led model to providing relapse prevention support to patients with Decompensated Cirrhosis manage their alcohol-associated liver disease. This has helped with bridging the care gap in patients who are too sick to engage in relapse prevention otherwise- we hope to be able to share this data at future liver meetings.
Farideh Yeganeh
Innovation and Inspiration
After 20 yrs of experience as a nurse, manager and supervisor in critical care units, Farideh worked as a Hepatology case manager with liver care Canada for over 7 yrs. Then, Farideh started her independent practice to perform Fibroscan, interpret the result, and provide patient education to improve liver health. Farideh is working with hepatologists, Endocrinologists, internal medicines, infections diseases specialists, and family doctors to help patients with fatty liver with early detection. Farideh is seeing patients and provide essential education for lifestyle changes and have follow up with her patients and improve their liver health while they are still waiting to see a liver specialist! They usually see their liver doctors when their liver fibrosis is reversed! Farideh is an initiative, Proactive RN, Working on public awareness about fatty liver, providing diagnostic and preventing services. She is following all Canadian community nursing standards; health promotion, prevention, health maintenance, professional relationship, accessible services for all, professional responsibility and accountability.
2023 Award Recipients
Elizabeth Lee
Distinguished Service
Tamara Barnett
Innovation and Inspiration Award
Sonja Hartz
Innovation and Inspiration Award
Fraser Jordan
Rising Star Award
2022 Award Recipients
Donna Zukowski
Distinguished Service
Stephanie Eiloart
Exceptional Contribution
Sharon Bojarski
Lifetime Achievement
Sarah De Coutere
Innovation and Inspiration
Kate Newcombe
Innovation and Inspiration
2021 Award Recipients
2021 was the first-ever virtual AGM. And although the Recognition Ceremony is more moving in person, the wonderful thing about virtual events is the ability to watch the recording. Please enjoy this clip of our 2021 Awards and Recognition Ceremony.
Carol Dupasquier
Exceptional Contribution
Jac Atkinson
Innovation and Inspiration
Mia Biondi
Innovation and Inspiration
Lesley Gallagher
Distinguished Service
